(:

Food factory.

2012-01-28T17:02:00.001+08:00

Can you imagine what a factory producing oreos would smell like? I hardly dare to imagine how heavenly it must smell. Can I live there please? When I grow up, I would like to live in a factory which produces oreos. Or marshmallows. Please. It would make my life complete.

Oh wait, I've already grown up.

But anyway, those are doublestuf oreos. They should have made them like that all along. That's what I think.

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Split.

2012-01-28T16:20:00.000+08:00

I need to split myself into more of myself. I need one of me to be studying, one of me to be committed to AIESEC, one of me to be the glue of the family, one of me to be a full-time caretaker for Eric, one of me to enjoy spending time with various groups of friends, and please let the me be the last of the me's, because I want to enjoy myself a little bit.

It's not that I'm not giving myself any breaks. I did. I didn't do anything that I ought to have done from 10pm last night all the way till 1pm this afternoon. It's because house visits were postponed, so I had an unexpected length of free time today. I gave myself a good long break. Last night I chatted online till 2 plus in the morning. I watched the ending of a movie with my parents till 3am. I slept, and I woke up and helped out with Eric's art supplies, but I slept again and dreamt of being in Ukraine, and there was Sasha Sikorska, and there was surprisingly also Benjamin, I have no idea why he came into the picture, and there was Eilton, I wonder why he was in the dream too, in Ukraine... And there was Guru, and perhaps Carson too, I'm not too sure. And then I think we were somewhere waiting to take the marshrutka, to get to the metro station, and somewhere in the background I saw a trail trodden by too many feet among the tall grass, a footpath made by too many feet having trodden there before. It's like the place where we had our picnic, but on the other side it looked like the entrance to the strip club, where we once sat tipsily along the curb. In my dream, I was on a swing at one point in time, and the swing felt just like the Screamin' Swing at Morey's Adventure Pier, summer 2010. The sensation I felt was the same, the g-force so strong I felt my blood vessels about to burst. My stomach rose as the swing oscillated back and forth in simple harmonic motion. And then I was in a museum, somewhat like the toy museum we went with the Green Country children in Kiev.

In my dream I was thinking, oh goodness me, I'm mixing up dreams and reality, I'm mixing up names and mixing up faces of friends. I'm mixing up everyone that I know, forgetting how I met them, why I know them, why we are at a certain place at a certain time. I was confused and afraid, but I didn't want to wake up, because I think I was in Ukraine.

I woke up when the doorbell rang, I saw that it was half-past noon. I struggled out of bed with the dream still so fresh in my mind. I did what I had to do. Eric took 2 hours to finish his lunch today. The last one hour was me feeding him. Mom left after a hasty lunch to buy the remaining of Eric's art supply from Bras Basah because that's the only place that sells them. I blamed myself for not studying his art supply list last week, because I was at SMU and I could have bought them then. I was lazy, I procrastinated because I wanted only to think of happy things, not troubling matters.

Mom is always resigned to circumstances. She is so tired and I suspect she is very unhappy. She has a stomachful of complaints and she starts talking about them to me. She doesn't ever complain like I do, never with my kind of aggressiveness and impatience. She complains in such a gentle, exasperated and resigned manner. Never raises her voice at all. But yet, I brush her off again and again, my tone laced with annoyance because I don't like to listen to these things that I already know. So she swallows her troubles again and let her duty and obligation to the family take over, let her actions overwhelm her conscious thoughts so that she is kept consistently busy, consistently occupied, never a moment of rest. Then I feel guilty, and I do exactly the same. Never a moment idle, so that I don't let my thoughts wander too far. What must be done must be done.

Shaelyn is catching on with my bad temper nowadays, especially with respect to her attitude towards Eric. She speaks with such harsh tones and he responds with his day-dreamy story-telling, seemingly unaffected. Every time such an exchange takes place I feel a stab in my heart. I ache, and then I take a deep breath and I continue with what I'm supposed to be doing. I block out all noise. I'm too tired to hurt. Hurting takes energy too, somehow. It takes effort to have any sort of emotion. So sometimes, like now, I let myself feel nothing. Nothing except the physical churning in the left of my chest. I wonder what that is.

Dad is perpetually pissed off, especially at Eric. He never has a single kind word to say. He either hollers, threatens or stings with his words. He waves a cane around and sighs with obvious intention and force. And he burrows himself in his work, or his hobbies, or by torturing Shaelyn with the leftovers of his fierce attentions. The last of these naturally leads to a retaliation from Shaelyn, with an absolutely nonchalant and negligent attitude towards her work. She occupies her meagre amount of free time building houses with Eric's lego and playing stupid games on her iPhone. Alternatively, she draws with Giant Crayons meant for babies. And so Dad turns to me for his rants and complaints, which I used to entertain before the term started, because we used to have lunch together. I listen to his side of the story, empathise, give my input, he feels happy. Now, I'm never at home for lunch. Today, when he started ranting, I ignored, and proceeded to shove food into Eric's mouth.

In between feeding Eric with baby-sized spoonfuls of beehoon, hiding his cup of Milo away from him, I read my Managerial Accounting textbook inch by inch. This morning, in my half-asleep state, I mentally accounted for my upcoming commitments and the backlog of school work and realised to my utmost dismay that even if I devote every single minute of my time to my studies, I wouldn't be able to catch up ever. I then proceeded to sleep it off.

I busied about today, answering phone calls from Sel, asking about AIESEC interview and directions to the venue, phone calls from Mom asking about the specifics of Eric's art supplies ("What's the difference between 2B and 2B zero? Lumograph and Norica? Is it necessary to by TiTi brand for oil pastels? Where can I find Zebra brand magic pens?"), fed Eric, went through Shaelyn's English composition and another English composition draft, fed Eric, hid his Milo, read my textbook, fed Eric...

His greasy hands grabbed my arms and my legs again and again, his food flew around as he waved his fork about. Dad waved something about too - the cane. My patience nearly ran out at the whole absurdity of the situation. Dad was talking about reproduction in plants to Shaelyn, who was fidgeting about in her seat, turning this way and that, throwing in words of reproach to Eric, both Dad and Shaelyn. Dad waves the cane about, mostly in Eric's face, sometimes in Shaelyn's. I feed Eric, read a line of my textbook, blocking out Dad's voice ("The leaves make up the bulb of the onion. The shoots grow above ground.") and Shaelyn's nonsensical questions ("They drew 10 leaves here. All 10 leaves are underground, how to make food?"), and I feed Eric some more, and Eric talks crazy things ("Do adults get scolded too? Do they go to jail? If I misbehave shall I go to jail? Let me go to jail, I will throw Mommy away. I am a zebra. My mommy is a giraffe. My mommy is a baby, and I push her in a pram. I am going to grow smaller and smaller. I will not grow up. Only your house has a cane, all other houses have no canes.")

And then Mom's text message came, and I hurried everyone out of their seats to get ready for class. Finally finished feeding Eric. Washed his hands and mouth and face, packed his art supplies. Packed Mom's laptop for her, called to check up on Ez-link card and her plans for tonight. Broke the news to Dad that Mom's not coming with us for the house visit to Great-aunt's house because her cousin - my uncle - is coming over tonight, and so Dad got pissed off, stormed out, stood around in the corridor. And then Eric's bag was too heavy for him but Shaelyn was carrying Mom's laptop so she didn't want to help him and I didn't care to ask her, and then they dilly-dallied and Dad went down in the elevator with a neighbour. Then Eric's water bottle fell out of his bag and Shaelyn was shouting at him and I was at home watching all this because I had already locked the door behind them, and I asked Shaelyn to help him but she just stood there shouting at him to hurry up and put his shoes on, and I lost my patience and snapped at her, "Can you just handle this??" and so she grabbed Eric's water bottle, dashed into the lift which just arrived, and Eric dropped his bag onto the floor but mustered all his strength to pick it up and called out in alarm to Shaelyn, "Wait for me!!"

And then the lift doors closed and I watched all of this in a very detached manner and I came into my room with a sudden wave of tears that disappeared as soon as they came, so I didn't cry. I don't cry. I won't cry.

I just go on dreaming. If only I can split myself into more of myself.

Chilling thought.

2012-01-26T20:03:00.001+08:00

There has been this thought going through my mind every now and then lately. It had certainly made its presence known, although it never stuck around long enough, or at the appropriate times, to make its impact really stay. Well, that is, until now.

Think about it, in about a year, we move into the real world. We move on. For now, within the safety of the physical campus, or that of the intangible concept known as student-hood, we are protected from the realities of the society. Of course we're not entirely sheltered. But we can't deny the presence of some rose-coloured veil that shields us from the cruelty of what is out there.

We are all students. We can technically be friends with anyone. We are free to associate ourselves with whoever we please. That is because we are equal. As students, no one is superior to another. Not in any way that really matters, anyway. In a sense, I'm comfortable being where I am.

This doesn't quite stay the same when we graduate. Oh, what a terrifying word, graduate.

When we leave the comforts of our second home (how I hate to call it that), we're embarking on completely different paths. People that we used to be friends with may soon turn into strangers, when there is nothing else to hold the friendship together. Conversations will have nothing to build on. Most of all, there is the issue of social statuses, that will separate us by some merciless invisible force.

I am already on a completely different path from most of my friends and family. There is less and less that I can comfortably associate myself to. I fear that the gap is only widening.

And I'm thinking, someday in the future, will I still be on speaking terms with many of the people I feel so comfortable laughing and joking around with? Or will we be completely different people, seeking different things in life...

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Slipping away.

2012-01-26T12:26:00.001+08:00

Little bits of memory slip away without me noticing.

The other day I was in the shower, and I suddenly recalled the announcements in the STM Montreal metro. Or rather, I realised that I was unable to recall how they said 'next station'. I still recalled the individual station names with almost perfect clarity. I remember the female voice making the announcement at each station. But I forgot how to say 'next station'. The only thing that flew into my mind was 'наступна станція'.

I was mixing up everything from everything else!

I felt a little bit distressed. The next morning, as soon as I got my hands on a computer, I searched Google translate. And ah, the moment of enlightenment. 'Prochaine station'.

I was happier.

CNY emergency.

2012-01-23T00:53:00.000+08:00

I was so nervous I nearly puked. I am in a kind of a state of trauma right now, and trying my best to quickly calm myself down. It helps that the TV is on and local artistes are belting out CNY songs. But still, the heart is fluttering. I'm not good in times of emergency. My head is hurting on one side. The left temple and all the way in.

We just had a sort of emergency. One moment I was just on my mobile talking to Pika, and then I was home packing the dining table and coffee table, while Mom was cleaning the jewellery drawer and Shaelyn was drawing on the little whiteboard. Shaelyn and I were hollering the "Elephants, I like elephants" song at the top of our lungs. And then Mom said that Eric was complaining that his eye was uncomfortable, so I went and had a look. There he was, hugging the huge box of lego to his chest, his left eye a red and swollen mess. He kept swiping at it with his hand. I asked if he was okay, if he wanted me to put some eye drops for him. I expected protests but none came. He said 'yes, please.' I asked Mom for the suitable eye drops, while I was searching for it, Eric called out weakly, 'you haven't finished singing the song'.

I returned with the eye drops and tried my very best to get some into his eye. He was unusually compliant, but every time a drop landed in his eye he would violently swipe at it and rub it so hard. I eventually gave up, settled him down with his lego and finished singing the song for him. He stood up, ran into the room. I followed after a while later and found him face down on his pillows. I asked if he was fine, and he replied, 'A little Peacock is helping me'.

I told Mom that Eric wasn't okay. She said she'll have a look at him later.

I minded my own business for a bit, but soon heard a lot of screaming at Eric to stop rubbing his eye. I went to check out what the commotion was about. Mom was very anxious and blabbered about some swollen eye. I was thinking, hasn't it been swollen for a long time already? And then I realised that it was an abnormal swelling. I went and looked at Eric's eye. To my absolute horror, the white of his eye was swollen so badly that his entire iris was sunken in. The whites of his eye were a hue of pink, and there was a translucent membrane of sorts, like some sort of gel. When he blinked, his eyelids couldn't close completely. The swollen white of his eye was like an overhanging piece of flesh, sticking out between his eyelids. Still, he was violently scrubbing at his eye with the pillow, or his hands. We screamed at him to stop but he wouldn't listen.

I don't know what happened next. It was a mad rush to get clothes on, and going online on mobile to check for hospitals. Quick decisions made, and then Eric was bawling. Talking in opposites, as he always did when he was upset. "I'm not afraid of anything, I don't want my mom, I'm not afraid of the doctor, I don't want mommy..."

Out of the blue, Dad said, "Happy new year".

"What, already?" I checked my phone. 00.01. Mom said, "Oh is it the new year already? Happy new year!" Shaelyn said a happy new year in a falsely happy voice and I managed to mumble mine weakly. And then they were all out of the house.

Shaelyn and I scrubbed our own hands with Dettol. I got my contact lenses out and went online to check about swollen eyes. It seems that Eric will be fine. It happens. But man, what a terrifying period of time.

I remember Christmas eve some years ago, 2008 I think, when Braydon was over at our house and fractured his finger when it got caught in the door. His nail broke in half and he bled all over the floor. Honestly, dripping blood all over the floor. And he was screaming out in pain and crying harder than I had ever seen. There was no adult at home except the maids and Grandma. I was panicked like crazy, got his bleeding finger tied up and rushed him to the clinic, called my parents, who called his parents, who couldn't get away from what they were occupied with, and then Mom rushed home and drove us to the hospital...

Why do bad things happen on the eves of holidays?

Why are there always so many emergencies in this house? It's freaking tiring.

And I know, Sergey told me about the law of attraction, and how bad things attract bad things over and over. I saw it myself, happening to Sofie. But how, how to make this craziness just stop already?

Small surprises and small failures.

2012-01-19T21:24:00.001+08:00

Life has a way of throwing such unpredictable surprises. Sometimes it feels as though everything was a logical consequence of everything else.

Tuesday, while with the OB team, talk turned to Jovin for a while, him being a mutual friend of Fahmi and I. This morning, JY asked a favour about Finance textbook, which made me send a text to Jovin to ask if he still has his. Later, I bumped into Jovin at the lecture theatre. He introduced me to his friend, who is also a friend of Fahmi. Talk naturally centred around Fahmi for a while.

Then, lunch with Elaine, who was taking a class that I know Fahmi takes too. Asked her if he's in her class. Yes, recognition, and absolutely accurate description. Finished eating, finished talking about Fahmi being late for class and 'debating' with someone. Just parted with Lainey, was headed left for the stairs but something made me turn right. And then I did a double take. There, twenty paces away, against the light if the afternoon, was Fahmi himself! Biggest surprise of the day.

The thing about me making such a big deal about these things is that my groups of friends are always very separate from each other. Just today, I had to meet them all separately, because they don't know each other. That's why I did nothing from 1pm to 3pm, except being with people. It's a surprise when the same people just pop into my life again and again and again within that short span of time.

Life is incomplete without certain small failures. I'm in Prof C's really really really bad books now. ): I'm thinking of ways to turn things around, but I fear the sacrifices that I have to make in order to make things work out. Opportunity costs are always so high. That's what makes life difficult...

Life has a way of giving me surprises and making me feel better. I was worrying about having offended Aaron since way way way back. Then, after the BD meeting, there was that unexpected occasion to talk and break the ice. Later on, I bumped into him at the bus stop and we talked all the way back, for more than half an hour, until I was sure that he's no longer offended by my insensitivity from long ago.

Sometimes I feel like there are so many patterns to be made out from life. But then I kinda think that it's just me, thinking too much... Anyway, about all those decisions that I'm about to make with my life, I'm wondering if the kind of happiness that I'll enjoy after those decisions will be natural happiness, or synthetic happiness? (In reference to that TED video I recently watched.)

I often wish for time to come to a complete stop, so that I can go figure things out for a bit. But I know I shouldn't complain, because many people have much tougher lives to lead. But sometimes I can't help but dream about more carefree days.

Speaking of dreams, I had another nightmare last night. Why, so many nightmares in the recent months! I can start making movies out of them, really!

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Colourful day.

2012-01-19T10:24:00.001+08:00

It's going to be a colourful day today! I dressed up colourful, to feel colourful, so that the day shall be colourful.

I've never worn the multi-coloured striped top with my yellow skirt before. I always imagined it to be too colourful, too striking. I wouldn't have imagined wearing them together on a school day. But I am! And I'm feeling happy because of it. I'm even wearing the rainbow-coloured watch strap today. So colourful.

Had a sudden need to listen to 'Tie your mother down' just now, so I loaded the YouTube video on my phone and enjoyed it. However I didn't have enough, so I loaded the Queen Rock Montreal version. That was good. I wanna put on that DVD at home, turn up the speakers and get really high! But I'd never have the liberty to do so. Shuang and I once talked of a Queen concert DVD marathon. Never happened. ):

Oh well, someday. Actually hopefully, someday soon. For now, I hope this stomachache goes away by the time I get to class.

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Any more sloppy, I'd be classified liquid.

2012-01-18T20:42:00.000+08:00

I've been such a slob, sooooo lethargic and purposeless and lazyyyyyy.

Sure, it's been really relaxing, but it's not comfy because I'm in a constant state of anxiety.

I have a few things to blog about, so this shall be an all-in-one.

--- Firstly ---

Yesterday was such a good day. OB, lunch with OB team mates, Macro, sitting around at the deck with Peiling and Seleena, performance appraisal with Pikaboss, ride home with Mom.

OB in the morning, fun. Very fun. (Actually objectively speaking, the class is not exactly fun. It's just all relative to my other classes, you see.) I spoke up once or twice, which I hope is creating a momentum for me to speak up more regularly for class. Our team volunteered for a silly thing, but it was fun, and it was a relief to know that Fahmi and Qian Li are open to this kind of thing. I mean, back last semester, for OE, I would not have hesitated to respond to the call for volunteers, because our team was so close as friends, and everyone was used to my "crazy antics", to quote Fahmi. But with these new boys, I was a little hesitant at first!

Prof called for 4 volunteers and my first thought was, oh, 4 people, perfect. My second thought was, ohhhkay, maybe the boys won't be up for it. And then Peiling said to me, let's go la! Then I kinda went like aerghhhhrrmm... I'm always like that when it comes to the point of making a quick decision. I can't be firm and just say YES let's do this. But anyway, then the prof said, two ladies and two gentlemen. And at that point I looked at Fahmi, he looked at me, it was a split second thing when we kinda both went, wanna go? ...okay let's go! And then he said, 'I thought this isn't your kinda thing,' to which I replied, 'I thought this isn't your kinda thing.' It's so funny because on hindsight, we were both holding back for fear that the other party would be uncomfortable with it, but we both actually wanted to do it. I think I'm coming to realise that him and I have quite some similarities, which was testified by the world's quickest personality test that the prof made us do in front of the class.

It was a silly thing which had the 4 of us standing in a row facing the class, with our arms stretched out in front of us and our eyes closed. We listened to what the guy in the video said, and I felt my arms drifting further and further apart, uncontrollably. I was thinking, oh my God I must be looking so stupid! I kept chewing on my lip. But it was funny eventually, when we opened our eyes and saw how far apart our arms were! Or in Qian Li's case, how they didn't move at all. I personally had a good laugh.

Lunch was nice. Talked so much, listened to so much stuff too, including Fahmi's life story hahaha. Surprising how many things we can talk about in an hour and a half! It was a perfect ice-breaking session, very natural. At least to me, it felt like we made the proper transition from acquaintances/classmates, to friends/team mates. I would say that Fahmi and I were already friends, but it was good to have all four of us together. Though there's still that occasional recurring fear of Fahmi's words from last semester, that working on the same team might 'destroy our friendship'. Hmmmm.

Macro class was wayyyy better than the first lecture. Probably because we sat in front. I didn't read up prior to the lecture, but I could mostly follow! Sat with Zehao. Whee, so good to have a familiar face around. Still very draining to sit through that lecture though. Once again, when we hit the 40-minute mark, my attention started wavering like crazy. Soon after, my brain refused to cooperate.

After class, went to the deck, where Peiling and I sat talking. Seleena happened to pass by! She settled down with us. Saw Di Wei too, but he didn't stop by for long, as always. It was nice having a chat with the girls. Later, Pikaboss came and we had a rather informal performance appraisal. It was more of a chance to chat and talk about the elections that just passed, among all sorts of other things. I didn't wanna leave, but I had to. Took the bus to Mom's office for the first time, and got a ride home. All was good, all was well. That summed up my nice yesterday.

--- Secondly ---

I had such an interesting dream last night! There was some element of fear, someone coming after me to kill me or something, but the environment was really interesting. I was in a shopping mall with Mom, and we were browsing all the shops for a necklace. A necklace with a pendant of a guitar. And then we browsed so many shops, when we came to one shop, which had basically everything I had never ever thought of owning, but I loved upon first sight. Accessories and bags and such, it was paradise. I wanted nearly everything in that shop, all those ribbons and anklets and earrings and tote bags of all interesting shapes, sashes and bangles and bracelets and even pillowcases! I loved every single item in that shop, but I was searching for just one item.

I want an anklet. I very badly want an anklet, and I've been wanting it for a week or so.

The anklet that I used to wear for two years decided to retire. In fact, it retired exactly a year ago, when I went to Montreal. It didn't actually retire back then. More of like I put it on holiday into my wallet, because I didn't want to crush it against my ankle in my winter boots. Later in the year, I probably wore it around some of the times, but not too much, especially not in Ukraine, because I was afraid that all my activities would make it snap. Anyway, some time after I returned to Singapore in August, I permanently let it retire, because the hook became faulty. I didn't want to risk losing it while wearing it.

Many months passed and my ankle remained unadorned. I thought that I would miss its presence, but I didn't, until... One day last week, the lack of an anklet on my right ankle SUDDENLY hit me. Come on, talk about delayed reaction? Anyway, my ankle has been feeling so naked ever since that day. I wrote a memo on my phone, "I want an anklet!" And I guess that contributed to my dream last night.

In that dream, I was searching so hard for an anklet. I was with Mom, probably because she's the one who bought me the other two anklets that I have owned in this lifetime. Both of those anklets have retired. I am in desperate want of another anklet, but I don't even know where to buy one from. I never found that anklet in that paradise shop in my dream. I just couldn't find one that suited me.

Today, I continued my search for my anklet, in real life. I didn't find one. I'm sorely disappointed. I don't want my ankle to remain unadorned much longer. It just feels so strange. Those years of my life when I had my anklet, I grew dependent on it.

I can't believe I just waxed literary on my anklet. But really. I think I have tendencies to be sentimental about small items, such as my pencil.

That concludes the second part of my post.

--- Thirdly ---

I've been considering many serious decisions in life.

1. To take a leave of absence from NUS next semester. (For my family.)
2. To apply for NOC (the apps close in a few days, so this is a really really really quick decision that I have to make) which would mean another semester away from NUS.
3. To run for EB in AIESEC.

I'm really torn. There is my own future to consider. There are also the heavy responsibilities of the household. I can't carry so much at once, because I'm not capable enough. Therefore, I escape. I borrow a novel, I lie in bed and I lose myself in it. I watch episodes of Glee, one after another, and push all thoughts of work and responsibilities out of my head. It's so irresponsible. I binge, too. On snacks. And I can't get my butt out of the house to exercise. Darn.

I'd like to think of myself as responsible. But I know I have issues with that. I know that sometimes, when I can afford the time, I run away. I escape from the things that I need to deal with, because at least for now, other people can help tide me through. Time is not pressing me so tightly yet.

Sigh. I don't know, sometimes I feel so lost and helpless, and most of all, lonely. Rationally, I know I have so many friends, and such close family members. But there is always such difficulties when I think hard and realise that in this world, I'm just... alone.

---

And this concludes this all-in-one post. I call it that, because it should have been three separate posts. But I procrastinated, and thus ended up writing them all together.

70 speeches.

2012-01-15T00:00:00.001+08:00

I think I listened to around 70 speeches today. Honestly. I'm so drained. I never knew that sitting there listening to people speak could be so exhausting.

AIESEC elections. 8.30am till 11pm, with hardly any break at all in between. Hardly ate. Tough decisions made, victories celebrated. Not many people persevered till the end, but I did. Partly out of obligation, partly because I suck at excusing myself from such situations. It was kinda like Rhythmic Gymnastics. I stuck around, and became captain. Changed my life. I stuck around today, and then I think I feel like running for an EB term.

Grace the current MCP said something today that kind stuck in my brain. She said that the fact that all of us young people could come together and devote so much of our time together to make a difference in the future of our organisation is a very beautiful thing. I agree. It's pretty amazing. Right now I do feel that this is a very important part of my life. I've been moved.

Okay, results for MC candidates just came out, and I'm awfully disappointed. Someone I really have faith in didn't get through to the next round. Someone I didn't have so much faith in did. Come to think of it, the latter, I shouldn't have voted for! Why, I must have been just doing the logical thing that my heart didn't really agree with. I'm confused. I thought that I had voted right. Perhaps my vote didn't really make a difference there. Or perhaps it did, in which case I would be feeling awful.

I'm glad, however, that MCP and LCP election results really turned out according to my votes, which I really put in a lot of effort to decide. My head was bursting with the pressure of making the right choice, because I knew that my vote carried weight.

[Edit @ 2.35AM: Just found out that LCP winning margin was by a vote of ONE. Oh my God!! Suddenly I feel so important!! My vote really really really counted! I'm so happy that I put so much thought into it and voted so seriously. I am really glad!]

Today's 70 speeches were all well-prepared and well-delivered. I learned so much. I didn't know that there are such nuances to public delivery of an idea. I really also saw, unfortunately, how the tone of one's speech can make or break one's chance, especially if the audience does not know the candidate personally. Charisma really matters, and while the fun factor is important, it is sincerity and trustworthiness that really matter. It is the belief that the speaker can generate in the voters that he/she will achieve the deliverables promised.

I learnt a lot today. At least I'd like to think so, considering the amount if time I had invested. When attending such AIESEC Singapore events, I always question myself a lot, about my passion in life, my beliefs, my capability and the impact I can possibly achieve. (Speaking of which, I still haven't finished up my NLDC post.) I always wonder how I can push myself to be more like these people. It's not because they seem like such amazing demigods or something. On the contrary, it is their ordinariness that really touches me. True, when I just joined AIESEC, I used to think of every AIESECer as a super-being. But having been here for some time, I got to know more and more of those 'high up' people on a personal level. They know me by name, we talk. They encourage me to participate, share my ideas. I wonder how they are just like me, yet they can do so many things. How can I be it too? How can they be so ordinary, yet so extraordinary?

I want to harness my energy in the right way. Honestly, I do. I need to think these things through, talk to people. It's about time I believe in the power if this organization, and contribute to it.

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Queeeeeeen! (and life)

2012-01-13T23:10:00.001+08:00

Omg, I'm high on Queen again. AHHH. It's been so long since I listened to Queen, but the effect, omg it never wears off no matter how long I don't listen to it!

The music from "A kind of magic" just floated into my mind, totally not bid for, but it just... I was in the shower, but I came out and just headed straight for my playlist. Ah, bliss. I went and did all the random email checks and paid phone bill and settled frustrating matters. In the background, Queen songs played, seeped through my sub-consciousness, and suddenly, suddenly, I'm happy beyond happy.

Seriously, nothing else gets me so happy! I can't explain it. No other music gets me out of my stupor, gets me moving, keeps me awake yet lulls me to sleep, brings smiles to my face, makes me push myself onwards. Oh, I remember how when my toe was broken and walking with crutches was so painfully tiring, whenever I'm sweating it out to walk just twenty paces, I just have to hum "Don't stop me now" and my fatigue leaves me.

Queen is AWESOME.

---

Lately, I vacillate violently between being extremely motivated and purposeful, to giving myself SUPER LONG, LETHARGIC, FOREVER-AND-EVER long breaks that I don't deserve at all. The latter happens more frequently. OH GOD HELP.

I have been thinking so much, dreaming so much, glossing over reality, such that I mix up the unreal from the real and I honestly have trouble remembering whether something was part of a dream, a figment of my imagination, a memory, or recent reality.

I haven't taken the time to talk about my wonderful workload this semester. All I have to do is to describe my very first Level 4 Macroeconomics lecture to send my message across.

Readings = a whole pile, from various books, that I have to hunt down.
Okay, no complaints about the quantity, or the inconvenience. Complaint: I can read them 10 times and still not comprehend a thing. The mathematical notations are gibberish to me. I am completely lost.
People = a room full of extremely intelligent-looking people whom I have never seen in my life, their very demeanour making me feel inferior and terrified of them.
I'm so gonna die in this class.
Professor = no-nonsense guy, talks like a bullet train.
Respect, and absolute fear.

My first lecture went like this. I went in with Peiling, and we were terrified by the whole aura of that room, of the people in that room, of the 16-page lecture notes in huge font but incomprehensible content, the readings that were full of symbols !($*)#$.

Prof started talking, I started copying, listening, copying, listening, and then I didn't know what I was hearing, or what I was writing. But I pressed on, listening, copying, so on... And I was mentally exhausted, physically exhausted, I didn't have the strength to write any faster, my mind wasn't processing any more information, there was so much I didn't know and I felt so stupid, I didn't remember anything that I had ever learnt before, oh how can I call myself an Economics major?

I really needed a break, I wished he would stop and give us a break, because I was certain that 2 hours should already have gone by, that's the kind of pace, and I looked at the clock but damn, it has only been 40 minutes. How is that even possible??

The second half of the lecture, my brain just refused to cooperate any longer. Extreme fatigue.

The prof asked questions, people shot answers out, he shot them down with "no, no, no, no." I was thinking, how do they even come up with those answers in the first place?? And I was thinking, what are we talking about now? What does that question even mean? What are all those symbols? I need Math tuition! And then the prof asked a question that no one could answer and he answered it himself, and said, "you should be ashamed!" He didn't emphasize that short little criticism, but I heard it clearly, because I was hanging on dearly to his every word, and at that moment I just felt so crushed, yes, I should be ashamed. I am ashamed, I am ashamed. I needed to hide my face. I'm ashamed. I shouldn't be in that class, but I had to be. I need to prove myself, to prove it to myself, to prove... I must survive.

So!

That was my first day of semester.

But it wouldn't be fair if I didn't mention the lesson before this particular one. The OB class! That was pretty awesome, just the way I had expected to be. There's this underlying excitement whenever I think of OB. It's the highlight of my semester. The workload is gonna be crazy, like MNO3303, but it's gonna be worth it, the learning, the working, the accomplishment. Oh, all the troubles we went through to get into this class together. Phew, we finally made it. Tuesday morning, 9am. We were all late, texting each other to save us each others' seats, blaming the traffic, but I was the earliest among the late so I got there first. Secured the second row seats, three chairs in a row, and then just as I turned from rejecting other people their requests to sit next to me, saw a familiar face that I didn't expect, Qian Li, friendly hello, so I said pull a chair up for Fahmi, and then Peiling came and sat on my other side.

I like the prof. Professional yet approachable. Wonderful. I'm excited. It will be good, I could sense it right then. I can sense it now. There's this little bit of nervousness among all that excitement and anticipation.

It's gonna be a good semester. I just hope I don't get on Fahmi's nerves too much. I think I am already beginning to do so, being so naggy about every little thing. But well, I'm not gonna let up to anything. If he's crazy, I'm crazier. I can do this thing!

---

And I have a feeling, this semester, Queen is going to be keeping me company...

---

AIESEC elections tomorrow! Full day event, so time consuming, but I'm kinda excited.

[Edit @ 11.16PM: I just read this once through, and God I'm so incoherent! It's laughable! Might be because of the Queen playing, which takes up like more than 50% of my attention subconsciously! Guess I gotta rethink about listening to it as I work! I'll just leave all the strangely-formed sentences in this post, so I can laugh at myself in the future.]

Nag nag nag.

2012-01-11T22:49:00.000+08:00

Nag, nag, nag.

It seems to me that I'm just doing that all day long. Nagging at Shaelyn, at Eric, at myself. Nag, nag, nag.

I wanted to come blog about something happy earlier, but ended up on Facebook, therefore felt guilty, therefore convinced myself that I had spent enough time on nonsense, therefore didn't blog.

Lo and behold, here I am again, because I... I just feel like a mess, and writing here sorts things out.

I had one day of classes so far. It killed me. I was drained, worse than ever before. It was worse than my first day at McGill, even. Level 4 macroeconomics kills, really.

I had aimed to finish those readings today, but as the day draws to a close, I have hardly started.

Disappointments.

Many obligations. Things to sort out. Small things, bigger things. Important, unimportant.

I find myself moving all the time, doing things. Picking up after people. Cleaning up the mess, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

But there is always more to be done. Messy, messy, messy. Soooo many things to do. So many obligations to fulfil. I'm freaking tired! Give me a break!

So I gave myself a break today. I slept close to 12 hours. Last night, and the nap. I think it was something like 9 + 2. Gee. As though I can afford it at all?? What's wrong with me.

Now I'm in a dilemma. Stay up? Go to bed? Well, I don't even know if I'm going to be productive if I stay up. But I know that if I go to bed now, I'll feel really really really terribly about myself.

The only good thing that happened today was receiving Sofia's mail. It made me want to cry. I've received quite a number of mail lately. One from Sergii, on behalf of the Summer Camp Team. One from Buddy. And now, another from Sofika. I feel so fortunate, so extremely fortunate. It makes me feel so small, to think of the journey that the mail took to come to me. It feels so incredible.

I miss the carefree days of 2011. I think it's my best year so far. With my current situation in life, I highly doubt those carefree days will ever come back again. I miss them already. So much, so much.

From now on, I only have duty and responsibilities. I can do this, I must do this.

Now back to work.

Mess.

2012-01-08T17:00:00.001+08:00

Here we are, every single day. Making a mess and then cleaning it up. Making another mess, cleaning it up. Cleaning up our own mess, cleaning up someone else's mess. Thank you, sorry, I won't do it again. But again and again, it goes in a cycle. Doing things that have consequences that we never intended, but that happen anyway, because we didn't think when we should have. Mess, clean it up. Mess, clean it up. Again. Again, again. Over and over. The story of my life.

I wonder if people would blame me for things. But do you realise, I don't have enough capacity to worry about so many things anymore. I'm sorry, but I'm busy helping out at home, you see. I'm sorry I haven't time or intention to think in your shoes, because I'm thinking in too many peoples' shoes, but never very much in my own shoes at all. Cleaning up someone else's mess.

I don't mean to be like this, really. But I can't help it. At least, I have such a natural tendency to be this way. I can't think of my own life in a detached manner. I don't know what my priorities are anymore because my priorities are a combination of the priorities of every person under this roof.

Sometimes I get so tired, like now, that I just lie in bed unmoving. Reading, writing, letting time pass. I am falling sick again. I'm wrapped in a blanket. Shaelyn fell sick again, second time in 2 weeks, but at least the fever is not so high like before. She passed the bug to me, I'm sure of it. But I never break out in sickness, almost never, at least. I just feel so unwell all over, so tired, aching. I know if I hadn't such a strange immune system, I would have been running a fever.

Mom worries that I carry her illness. I think... Maybe I do? I need some shut-eye.

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Life goes on.

2012-01-06T23:43:00.001+08:00

I've been so troubled lately, worrying about all the things in life, instilling discipline everywhere, forcing routine into my life. Everything I did was for a good reason. Every action a good cause. Every decision made with caution and good intentions. I was making myself enjoy that kind of uptightness. But that is not me in the least. I was being someone I'm not, just so that I could fulfil the role that the family needs, that I want to be.

Tonight I went out, I let go of myself and I had fun. Good fun, the Ukrainian kind of fun. I'm beginning to think of it as the AIESECers' kind of fun. It was good. It was great, actually. To have gotten permission to go out, to let go of all my inhibitions, to shout above the noise to be heard, to just have fun, have real good fun. It was awesome. All the more awesome and so, so treasured, because I know I'm not going to do this again anytime soon. I don't know when I'll ever be doing this again.

To be young is to have fun. To dare to try things. To be out there living the life. I must not forget this, that's why I'm writing this down. I foresee that I'll soon get so caught up that I forget what really makes me happy. (Because I'm going to delude myself that keeping a strict routine is what makes me satisfied with life.) I know I have a lot of responsibilities at home. I'm not complaining at all. I am not growing up before my time; it's about time I'm grown up. But I'm just saying, sometimes it still feels really good to hang out, play stupid games, spend without thinking twice, drink without worrying. I realise that I'm sounding irresponsible. But maybe I just forced too much upon myself at once. When I'm home, I'm constantly worried about the things that I have to do, what more I can do to relieve the load on the others in the family. When I'm out, I still think of home, and that I should be home, because I have so much to do.

The other night I was out with JY, JH and Mel. Just dinner, because I was rushing off to fetch Lyn from her class. It was nice to meet friends, to talk about things that are about them, and about me, but not about responsibilities and family and duty. But those things were all at the back of my mind. Always at the back of my mind. Still, it was nice to spend time with people my age. So nice.

Today I went out with the AIESECers. First met Jason to buy farewell present for Duy. Then we finished with that so early, and went to scout the dinner place. Met the rest and led them there. The other Jason arrived soon after, and we had a satisfying dinner.

I initially didn't want to join them for the after-dinner activity. But as discussion about that went on and I listened, I realised I really wanted to go. Dinner was not enough. I didn't want to go home and face my computer, wondering about the next step in my life. Then Julian said he was coming to join us, then just somehow I decided that there was no reason for me to go home so early after all. I called Mom and she was okay with me staying out till it was time for me to go to the airport. I was elated. I went along. For once, I went along! I didn't have to make up an excuse and go home.

We went to Holland V, settled in a pub and I felt, today I'm gonna drink. I never drink. Because of that allergy. I'm afraid something bad will happen. But today, I drank, and it was so nice to just be part of something. To do it like everyone else. Not saying that I'm not part of everyone else when I'm not drinking; I'm always high and in the game and screaming and laughing and teasing and being teased. I'm never left out and quiet, or ridiculed. But today was better, because while playing those drinking games, I didn't have to feel awkward when I lost because no one else had to drink on my behalf. It was like the Wildwood days during Work and Travel, before I was aware of my alcohol allergy, when I just drank with only the fear of getting drunk, but not of anything else (such as dying).

We played a really silly game today, but I was so into it. I'm always into whatever is going on, as long as it's not too nonsensical or ridiculous or against my principles. When 10.30pm came around I didn't want to leave, but I was glad for having an excuse to leave. I didn't wanna be too irresponsible after all. Now I'm on my way to the airport. I won't be late! It's a first. Lately I'm always late. I'm tipsy actually, because I was so cautious with my beer at first that I ended up downing half a mug in my last 5 minutes. I never drank so quickly, ever. But that's because usually I am cautious. I either don't drink, or take small sips. Today I just gulped it all. No reservations. It felt so good, though I'm really kinda tipsy now and I feel like sleeping.

But this is like... Just a dream? A tiny deviation from real life? An excuse? I know that. And now it's back to the burdens and the troubles and the fretting and the planning and the justifications (to the parents and the self) and the assumption of the role and the life of a daughter/sister/cousin to be depended on.

I'm still so glad for the diversion, though. It's so good to just forget, for a while. To be young again. I've arrived at the airport. Pikaboss just called to check on me. How nice it is to have someone check on me without having the obligation to, but just being nice. It's been a while. I like. I'm such a baby. Okay, time to hit publish and get my full attention back to real life!

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Tears.

2012-01-04T10:03:00.001+08:00

I think for the past month now, everything makes me tear up. I don't start crying or anything, but well, the tears just well up extraordinarily easily.

I tear up at stupid scenes in movies that never used to make me cry. I even tear up when I watch Glee! I also tear up almost every other night when I'm lying in bed, thinking about things. Well this wasn't ongoing in the past month, but more of the past week perhaps.

Just now, I was reading Prof Quah's blog and I teared up because of how beautifully written the ECONOMICS was. What the? It's economics!! But I felt the urge to weep. Why? What's wrong with me, am I really letting my emotions go astray? I'm a little bit disturbed. Discipline, girl!

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Nightmare.

2012-01-03T23:49:00.001+08:00

I had a nightmare early this morning. It was about Mom. It was so bad. I can't get to sleep now. I think the fear of the previous night's nightmare comes back when I'm lying in bed.

I found out that my nightmare foreshadowed some real events in Mom's life. It's frightening and I feel helpless.

I had a good day today. I really took charge. But I'm having so much self-doubt. Will I be able to hang on when school starts and AIESEC obligations become full-fledged? I don't dare to take things up anymore, such as those that Dad asks me to do. They're too time consuming and before I know it, I'm going to push everything else before my school work. I'm so afraid. I've never been so afraid before the start of term before. Not ever.

I suppose my lousy results last semester is just making things worse. Every ounce of confidence I generate dissipates as soon as I recall how B-tiful my results were.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

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Give it up for the man of the family!

2012-01-02T22:52:00.001+08:00

Yes, I can do anything. Need a handyman for an odd job?

We changed the light bulbs in both rooms. It is more complicated than it sounds because there were faulty components in the light. But the sense of accomplishment I got from this is great. Just great.

I can do this thing!

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Censored.

2012-01-02T18:35:00.001+08:00

This new year is damn fucked up. This family is damn fucked up. I don’t really give a shit about my language anymore because the things that are holding everything else together are coming apart. Disintegrating. Bursting at the seams because the thread is disintegrating, it just isn’t strong enough to hold things together.

We had such an enjoyable day yesterday, honestly. We all went out, well except Dad of course, because Dad doesn’t act like part of the family anymore. The cousins all came, but well they still look at the other cousin with a discriminatory eye. What the fuck, there’s discrimination within the same family!! Though of course they aren’t related by blood because they’re cousins from different sides of the family but still, damn it. Grow up, kids.

I lost my temper at the dinner table last night, though it’s the first day of the new year. I got fucking annoyed by those tweens. They just didn’t stop making jokes that weren’t funny anymore, when all the while I was trying to take care of their welfare. I was looking out for them all day long so that Mom would not be so tired, because Eric is enough to keep maybe TWO of her busy. And looking out for them for THAT LONG was just too long. I guess I’m not as good as I used to be, not as capable.

Oh and I forgot, I cried yesterday, TWICE. OUTSIDE. Well once I was hiding in a toilet cubicle and another time I was in the car, so no one saw. But still. Both times because of things that Mom said, and because of my own incompetency. I can’t keep the family together. I can’t keep things in order because by some stupid law I forgot what, everything tends towards chaos. God damn it. I cried on the first day of the year, twice, yet I’m sending people messages saying that it’s going to be a good year. I really want to believe in that. I really want every year to be better than the last. Part of me still believes that. But I’m tired. And Mom is a hundred times more tired. And I know that there are so many things to fix but I don’t know how to begin and I don’t know how to fix them.

Mom is dying. She may as well have said that, rather than this long story of how she has been feeling more pains and getting more illnesses. She never told anything. Why doesn’t she tell?? Why didn’t she ever let me know that she went for all those medical check ups all by herself? I always thought she just went to the office. But no, she’s not at work, she’s in the hospital on general anaesthesia. Why didn’t she ever say? Why is she only revealing a tiny fraction of her fears to me now??? The fact that she’s even letting any information on to me means it must be really really horribly bad for her, because otherwise she would always keep things to herself.

And Dad, he’s so unhappy with the fact that Eric is here to live with us. He is bloody pissed off by everything else too. And he stays in his room all day long except at meal times. He still talks to me, but mostly we have talks about how to make Shaelyn work harder for her PSLE, because she just isn’t working hard enough. She left almost ALL her homework to the last day, and all of us were so busy caring about our own lives that we never checked on her. Now she’s still there, trying desperately to finish, and there’s nothing we can do to help with that.

And there’s pressure about PSLE from allllll places. It freaking sucks. It’s like I’m going through my own PSLE once more, with the pressure to perform. I never had the pressure to perform when I was going through PSLE. There were no other kids before me. I was just gonna do my best, and who knew that my best turned out to be 277, which is this impossible target that all the other cousins have aligned themselves to?? I never wanted that. I never wanted Shaelyn to be so stressed.

But back to Dad, he has a freaking bad attitude. He didn’t even countdown with us. He stayed in the car. STAYED IN THE CAR. What the hell?? And he didn’t go out with us yesterday. He stayed home. STAYED HOME?? On New Year’s Day, and left his wife to take care of four kids, whose average age was like… 9. And then one of them had to fall off his bike and bleed.

And Shaelyn doesn’t ever say what she feels, until way after. I’m like, come on, you have to TELL me if you’re not happy with this. She doesn’t ever say! She’s just like, okay if you want me to do this then I will. But in the back of her mind she’s thinking, yeah I will do this and then I’m gonna die of fatigue and see if you feel guilty about it. I’M NOT PERCEPTIVE ENOUGH TO TELLLLL what this girl is thinking inside!

In this whole family I’m the only one who keeps communicating what I feel, and how do I do that? I keep losing my temper! I don’t raise my voice so much anymore, but I say vicious things! It’s uncontrollable. (Good thing is, at least I never lose my temper at Mom or Dad or Shaelyn. Just at strangers and at cousins. And at everyone in general. So they can hear about my displeasure.)

I’m tired of a lot of things. I often feel like I don’t wanna go on anymore. I want to shut down. The world is fine to go on without me. But then I realise there’s Mom, and if I’m not here to share the burden, who will be? No one else. No one at all.

Mom doesn’t ever want me to bear any of the burden. But she doesn’t have a choice. She’s not strong enough to carry so much on her shoulders, especially not as her health is quickly deteriorating. It scares me when she talks of death. It scares me to my core. I cry, and I get frustrated. Small things make me lose my temper. There’s so much anger built up, anger that I don’t know how to direct elsewhere. So when a lady selling umbrellas made a discriminatory comment about my mom’s China accent, I wanted to go back and look for her to fight. I was too preoccupied looking at umbrellas that I didn’t hear that comment at all. If I had, I would have flared up right then and driven all the other customers away, and made a huge scene that made my mom embarrassed, which would then have made me feel guilty. But at least I wouldn’t have to swallow the anger, because doing so gives me indigestion.

Oh, just the other day the whole family was laughing over various stories of how I’ve quarrelled with strangers over small issues, all over my teenage years. They laughed about how that most timid little girl, who never dared to even ask for chilli sauce at McDonald’s, grew into a loud teenager who shouted at pickpockets, at inconsiderate people, at taxi drivers who were rude. I didn’t realise that I’m using this as an avenue for all my frustrations from other aspects of life.

Okay, I’m done venting. Life goes on, I still face it with a smile, I still try my very best to treat everyone at home pleasantly. I guess the more angry I am here, and the more vulgar, I suppose, the more reasonable I can be in real life.

I’m just really tired of all the unjustness of everything. How unfairly treated good people are. And how much burden there is to bear. And how I’m not strong enough to do it. Not mature enough. Not good enough. Just lousy. But I’ll make sure I can do better. It’s a promise. I can do this, and this year may still be good, no matter how bad it is it will still be good. I won’t have unrealistic aspirations, no more. There’s nothing more about me. I just need to keep this family together. I need to be the daughter to be depended upon. I need to be the big sister to not just one kid now, but two. I need to be a role model and the person they turn to for advice.

Well, I’m beat. I’m honestly beat. And to make matters worse, I just gained back all the weight I had lost, and even more. I’ve never been this heavy before, and never felt this fat. And I’m ugly. But all that is going to change, that’s a promise too.

I’m so tired.

Happy new year!

2012-01-01T02:34:00.001+08:00

It's going to be a great year. I can't say I can feel it now, but I didn't feel that 2011 was going to turn out great on the first of January 2011. Yet, it turned out so awesome. This year will be the same. I just gotta believe, and make it happen.

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I will do this.

2011-12-30T00:56:00.000+08:00

I know that the number of posts for this year has broken my previous record. But anyway.

Tomorrow, when I wake up, I will get out of bed without lazing around. I will get ready for tuition and I will not forget to bring the 1B book. I will read up along the way to make sure that I'm familiar with what I'll be teaching. I will have a good session with Samantha and good impressions will remain.

I will return home and get started with my rewrite, because despite all determination, I didn't finish it tonight. I'll finish it tomorrow before the afternoon is over, and then I'll clean my wardrobe in search of my missing birthday pendant.

I will find it.

And then I'll start my reflections post. Woohoo, my 2011 reflections post, which will cover all aspects of my life from academics to social to AIESEC.

I'll get that done and then I'll do all the girly stuff that I must finish before the year elapses! (Because I know that the weekend will be packed so I can't leave things till then.) Or maybe some time in between I would have done them all already.

When tomorrow is over, I'll be one happy and motivated individual, ready for 2012. No more sloppiness, that's a promise!

Now that we've got all of those in black and white, I'm going to bed. This post is to hold myself accountable to my words.

[Edit @ 8.45PM, 30th December. I always think too highly of myself. I'm still writing the prof's paper, and I didn't do any of the other things that I said I'd do after I finish the paper. T.T But I did bid for my modules, and do a lot of those annoying things.]

Rapunzel.

2011-12-29T10:41:00.001+08:00

Saw three Caucasian backpackers, two ladies, one man. Two of them look absolutely ordinary but the last one, the lady, has amazing hair. I couldn't stop staring. It's straight and blond like a Barbie doll's. She had it done in a thick, neat plait right down her back. So so so so pretty I couldn't stop staring I think I said that already. I almost went up to her to tell her that she has amazing hair, but then thankfully I stopped myself. I think her hair is the most amazing I've ever ever seen. It even beats the other Rapunzel that I saw in McGill. But maybe it's just my memory failing me.

Now, time for some bad news. They didn't give back my old passport, the one that went with me to Europe, Ukraine and Beijing. T.T What did they do with it what did they do?? Where is it now? I miss it. I want it back!! ): ): ): ):

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Late.

2011-12-29T10:18:00.001+08:00

I'm late again. Damn it why am I always late nowadays? I never used to be.

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-Hug-

2011-12-28T15:52:00.001+08:00

I think I really needed to get out of the house. Not literally, because I have been out of the house everyday, but rather emotionally, getting out and letting go of my worries. Getting out today, that's all I needed to cheer up and feel like myself again. Oh, to think that I almost didn't want to come out and meet my friends today, because of little frustrations. I'm glad I persisted in my plans.

'Come here, you.'

That was Roy, asking for a goodbye hug from me, in the wide open area of Dhoby Ghaut interchange. It drew much laughter from Isabel and Koichi, and me as well. But that was the turning point, when I felt that everything was normal again. It's so familiar, hugging your friend with no other intention but friendship. To show how much it meant to both of us that we are here, together, in this time and place. To know that it was fate that we first met and many more coincidences and hard work that let us meet again, because no matter how much we say 'what a small world', we know that the world is huge and we don't know when we shall ever meet again. Because no one is going to fly across half the world just to see you again. But if ever there's a chance for our paths to cross, we will push for it. We will make sacrifices for it to happen. Till then, we wait, and we look forward to the day.

It's the pain of having made friends while abroad. Somehow, spending that short period of time together, thinking of places to go for lunch, studying, staying up late, it just creates a special bond. It makes us feel like we were friends for life. I can't explain it, but I don't share this kind of bond with anyone from home, yet I share it with many people from abroad. Like what Claudio said, those days in Beijing were magic. It feels like every moment we could spend together was a stolen moment. We treasured it all the more. Because we all knew that our days were 'numbered'; the most common question we asked each other was 'when are you flying?' and we consoled ourselves with the thought that there are still that many days left to go.

I think I'm lonely. Well, I know I'm lonely. Because even if there are friends, it's hard to remember that they're there, when you don't hear from them all that often. Sometimes I miss certain people. It's difficult. I often wonder if we'll be able to have fun like we used to, when we meet again. If ever we meet again.

I had a dream last night. The things that happened in that dream betrayed so much longing. It was, simply, a person waiting for me at the MRT station. I got off the train, and I knew just where to look. And the moment when eyes catch. The distance closed, that brave moment of scooting across stone bench. Brushing dirt off shoulder clad in black. Standing.

I'm definitely one for hugging. I think it is most unfortunate that we don't have such a habit here, of hugging when we meet. I'd much prefer a hug to a wave. Maybe that's why I really loved it in Ukraine, because it didn't take more than a day to get used to the hugs that everyone was so generous to give. (Note: This wasn't the kinda hugs that some people give, those that intrude into your bubble or on the other end of the spectrum, the awkward kind which are too wary and cautious. Those hugs were just really friendly and comfy.) There are many kinds of hugs, and then there is a kind of hugging that only happens in dreams. I'm not ashamed to admit my dreams because I didn't control them, I couldn't control them. Only in dreams am I able to hug someone and really feel that the person fills the void in me. And I said, 'this feels so nice.'

I don't know what I'm lonely for, when I have people around me all the time. But you know what they say... You don't have to be alone to be lonely.

Nevertheless, I am happy. I am happy because I am contented. Perhaps I'll learn to get used to this lonesomeness.

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Dark and unhappy place.

2011-12-27T23:17:00.001+08:00

I'm in a dark and unhappy place and I have been there since last Tuesday although so many happy things happened in between such that most of the time I'm superficially 'happy' but I'm truly upset deep inside which explains why my posts have been unhappy and I find it hard to get out of bed and also most difficult to stop playing Solitaire/Spider Solitaire which has kept me on my computer wasting my life away for most of my hours awake but oh of course I spent my Christmas weekend doing some other things such as meeting my beloved friends on Friday night, a movie marathon all day long on Christmas eve and much much family interaction time on Christmas Day, and then lots of Wii and even ice-skating on Boxing Day which has unfortunately left both Shaelyn and I ill such that I had to call off the zoo trip tomorrow but of course that is also because I have neglected my duties as an RA oh I am so disappointed in myself but stop.

Dad went into lecture mode after dinner and his nagging didn't make much sense because what he said was hardly relevant except for one bit, about discipline, which spurred me into a short burst of action. Yes, just a tiny burst, where I cleaned up the mess of wires and ice skates and picked up some things here and there. But that felt good. And with this I declare that I'm coming out of this dark and unhappy place and I'll be in my happy place before the new year comes around.

What happened?

2011-12-27T17:47:00.001+08:00

The year is ending but I’m not even ready for it to end. Perhaps last month, I felt all ready to welcome next year, next semester. I felt that I just had the best year of my life, and I was ready to write a really nice reflection post. I was ready to face the future, and do better than ever. I think everything changed when I got my results back. I know I previously said that no matter good or bad, knowing my results would provide the necessary push for me to work harder. Well I was wrong.

Ever since this day last week, I went on a downhill ride, and it wasn’t thrilling.

I can’t get myself back up again, it seems. I want the world to stop, and let me get back up on my feet. I’m part disappointed, part exasperated. Am I really not good enough? That elusive A, when will it ever be mine? I feel that I had worked harder than ever, but I know it wasn’t hard enough. It’s just that I’m not so sure if I’m ever capable of working harder than this.

Christmas weekend was full of nice things, but I was not happy. Today I slept all day long and pushed aside my responsibilities. Actually I’ve pushed my responsibilities aside for the past week.

I’m confused. So many things in life are uncertain. So many things I’ve said I’ll do but didn’t. How can I perk myself up and be ready for next year to come? I don’t know how I can possibly do it.

I need a breakthrough. Where’s all that energy from NLDC?

Well, I slept all day today. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

I had a vivid dream early this morning. I just took a plane from somewhere, and landed somewhere else while I was asleep, so I had no idea where in the world I was. It was a beautiful city. So grand, with such wide streets and majestic buildings. It took my breath away. I was in awe, yet I was so afraid and alone. It was snowing but I wasn’t dressed for snow. I wanted my camera so that I could take some photos, but I was too cold to fish it out of my bag. There was hardly anyone around on those wide and empty streets. I don’t think this is a scene I’m likely to forget. I walked on and on but kept meeting dead ends. I had no idea where I was, and all I could think of was that I had to tell my mother that I was still alive. The snow was falling faster and faster, and I had no idea what to do. It was a beautiful nightmare.

I had another vivid dream this afternoon. I went to Ukraine, and my mother was with me. I saw some of my friends and I introduced them to Mom. I was surprised that the country looked so run-down. All the time Mom said, if I had known this, I would never have let you go to Ukraine. It is a dangerous place. I told her no, I didn’t understand why the place looked like this. I told her that I’m still alive and well. A lot of things happened afterwards, and none were good. The whole dream consisted of trying to remember things that were already forgotten. It was another beautiful nightmare.

I’m unwell. Please let me get better soon. Each morning I wake up with a weak conviction to get better today, but I never do.

Conflicts.

2011-12-26T12:06:00.000+08:00

What a confused individual, what incongruity in thoughts. What dilemmas in speech, what misguided descriptions. I feel an affinity yet I feel like scoffing. I truly have the Leo's tendency to want to "one-up" others.

---

So many conflicts in life, in thoughts. Such a mess in everything, everywhere. This heart, it refuses to be calm. It flutters in anxiety and roils in confused turmoil. So much angst. Thoughts scuttle through my mind, as though afraid to stay for long, yet unwilling to leave until making their presence known. I push them away, but they come back to haunt. Memories and dreams get entwined in one another; aspirations and reality clash, fight, repeat.

I want to calm myself down once more, with happy thoughts and peaceful beliefs. (Throw in a bit of excitement about little joys in life, and accomplishment in small things that I manage to achieve.) I want to lie still with the knowledge that fretting is unnecessary, because everything ahead of me will work out.

If nothing else, I just want the challenges within this family to be overcome.

My little sister.

2011-12-25T13:00:00.001+08:00

My little sister is so grown up now. I even ask her for relationship advice, because I like the frank and blunt observations she makes.

I think I was meant to be a younger sibling, though fate made me the eldest in both sides of the family by a long shot.

My little sister is so beautiful. Soon enough 'fellows will fall in line'. I know for sure she'll handle them better than I've ever handled my affairs.

Oh, Merry Christmas.

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Results.

2011-12-20T08:12:00.001+08:00

What the hell so many Bs?? And not a single A??? ): I want to die.

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Confusion.

2011-12-18T12:31:00.003+08:00

I think sometimes, I still prefer living in my own little bubble. Social media tells too much. It reveals too much about what life could be like, and I don't like that. I lose myself in the lives of other people, and wonder why mine is nothing like that. Extreme immaturity, but I can't help it. I've always had such a tendency. The only time I get any relief from this, is when I am out there living my life too. I can't keep still. I can't keep my ass in one place. I need to go. I need to fly.

I feel like a trapped animal. I feel the need to escape from here, to go somewhere, but I don't even know where. Sometimes I seek for that feeling outside of my head, making plans, doing things, planning ahead. Sometimes I bury deep into my own consciousness and expel everything from the outside, dreaming, imagining, pretending. I need a constructive outlet, but I can't engage in anything that doesn't feel like a chore to me. I take on too many things, and end up in a mess that I can't wait to get out of. I feel horribly tied down by obligations, wrecked by temptation, blinded by an amalgamy of thoughts that don't mash up.

I sometimes wonder if I'll ever make sense of my life, know my purpose, be the person that I am comfortable with being. I wonder if I can look at the lives of other people and KNOW that those lives are not ones that I ever want to lead. In so many ways, I don't have the courage. I can't commit to anything at all, because I change my mind too quickly. I don't have the guts to just stick to something and know that's the thing that I will be happy with, for the rest of my life.

---

I suppose that's why I can never ever be in a relationship. Sometimes I find it so easy to "fall for" people, and then forget them as soon as anything. Other times, I realise how I still haven't gotten over certain people. It haunts me. It's as though I try to rid myself of their memory, knowing that nothing would ever work, but then I just cannot seem to fully rid myself of moments that make me smile, after all those time.

Someone said to me, 'follow your heart'. I wanted to scoff. My heart doesn't know a damn thing about what I really want. Things wouldn't work out, let's not fool ourselves.

Bored.

2011-12-18T10:56:00.001+08:00

Wrote this last night, during the ballet concert intermission.

I'm at Shaelyn's ballet concert and I'm bored to death!! ): I think I've lost patience for little babies who are disobedient, and also obnoxious kids who think too highly of themselves. ):

I sound mean. But anyway I think Shaelyn did awesome! We need to put her in a better dance school to groom her. She has potential but I don't see her growing to realise it while at this school.

I think I'm sometimes a bit obstinate.

Arghhh, post-conference life tossed me in the middle of a noisy cousin and family craziness and I can't handle it. I need some order in my life... ):

Happier thoughts, I love the friendships built over NLDC. Also, I've started writing my NLDC post 2 days ago. I don't know when I'll ever finish it, but at least it's already on its way!

Last thing. I miss flipping down on the auditorium seats with Lionel, Julian, Jason & Jason. I wish I had taught it to more people, then we could have all done it together.

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LDR.

2011-12-15T22:48:00.000+08:00

Every time I see how someone else's LDR has worked out, how they're still so sweet to each other after months or a year or a year and a half, I feel a little bit like dying.

[Edit @ 10.56PM: It has been reinforced. I think people fall for me easily, and that's a huge problem when they start to express themselves.]

Right now.

2011-12-15T14:17:00.000+08:00

Right now Yvvy suffers from serious post-conference blues.
Right now Yvvy misses J.
Right now Yvvy is troubled about many problems.
Right now Yvvy is afraid that Prof C is going to be upset with Yvvy for being so inefficient.
Right now Yvvy stares at a blank Word document and frets.
Right now Yvvy can't get enough of roll call songs i.e. Kylie by Akcent, Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga.
Right now Yvvy feels whiny like a child.
---
Yvvy hates infatuations.

Post-conference blues.

2011-12-14T22:58:00.001+08:00

Oh, how I'm suffering right now. NLDC was awesome, way too awesome. It was such an inspiring, amazing, enriching, challenging, emotional 5 days. And so fun, so incredibly fun. It was epic.

How could I ever have imagined how life-changing this conference would turn out to be?

I laughed, cried, danced, sang, worked, performed, shared. I was truly empowered, and empowered others too. Words cannot describe the awesomeness of something like NLDC 2011.

Going through things like this makes me certain of the power of youths, of passion, of will. I wish it could go on for a few more days...

I need a more detailed post to give full credit to the kind of growth I experienced over the past 5 days. However, I was way too tired today. I hardly got out of bed all day long. Now I'm in bed once again. After I recuperate physically and emotionally, I'm going to turn the energy from the conference into something real.

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Sweating it out.

2011-12-07T20:54:00.001+08:00

I just really sweated it out, practising the new roll call for AIESEC at the Central Forum, oh and the old one too. Actually I think the old roll call is more tiring than the new, though the new has more difficult moves. I must admit, it was really really fun!! I think I miss dancing, that's what. Ahhh, learning the moves and the sense of achievement as I remember it; dancing with music, that's the best part because you can really feel the beat... You know what, I think I'm actually going to enjoy NLDC. (: Of course roll call is just a tiny part of it, but I hope, really really hope, that the entire experience will be inspiring and enriching and fun.

Now, other random thoughts of the day.

I really like to hear snippets of Dad's conference calls sometimes, because it shows how the things that we're learning at school are so relevant in the real world! I love it when things point to me that what I'm slogging through the books are real-life, not just 2D on the textbook page. Today I heard him talking about project costs, with reference to how it's an incremental cost and how it may be possible to attribute 3 months' worth of expenses as deprecation for their particular project, if they can convince the company that this expenditure is going to be made use of in the future too.

Other matters of sweating it out, though not literally, I had a three-hour long tutoring session with Shaelyn last night. In think we were both beat after that! Maybe that's why we didn't manage to wake up early enough to have another session. Or maybe that's more because I stayed up till 2 Skyping Sofie. Sofie's really sweet. But I still am trying to find a way to let her know that I can't afford that much time to talk to her. Sigh, finding that balance, so difficult...

I finally finished reading the professor's paper this afternoon. It was extremely interesting to read, especially the methodology, though he asked me not to read that, because I don't need it to write the essay. But anyway, the methodology totally captured me because it was all applying the things we studied in econometrics! He used a whole lot of dummy variables, introduced quite a number of interaction terms and did regression. The results were amazing. All his five hypotheses were tested by our familiar hypothesis testing though he didn't go into any detail there. I just deduced that he used hypothesis testing because what else could it be? He tested them at different significance levels too, with neat little brackets showing the p-values. Reading that was way cool. Best thing ever, seeing the boring things we study come to life in someone's research. I just felt so happy! If only I didn't have the essay to write on top of that...

But anyway, I have a resolution. I need to read the news. I've always known this, but I never put thoughts into action. I have been giving myself too many excuses all these years. Now's the time to stop, because I have to be responsible now, really. Time to accumulate more human capital to ready myself for life ahead... (:

Went to get souvenirs for the NLDC Global Village this afternoon. At first I was full of injustice for being made to carry the burden of 7 people, but after that, a couple of people came to my rescue and I thought, what happened to my philosophy about no complaints? No complaints about being made to do more than the rest in a group. After all, I am responsible enough and capable enough to do it on my own, and it's the end product that really matters. I want to do it well, so I will! And I did. And it was fun! Although Lionel was the only person who managed to show up, I counted my blessings. It was good to have company. Also, it's good to talk to a like-minded person about Economics classes, future job prospects, next summer's internship etc... Aaron, while not physically here, also helped a lot by getting durian candy, and DINNER! All thanks to him, we had dinner awaiting us when we rushed over for roll call meeting.

I think I'm becoming more accommodating, but not in a bad way. I also stick to my principles because I've finally come to realise what I can and cannot accept. It's good to know what I believe in.

The holidays so far has been very eventful, and quite fulfilling. I want it to remain this way, always!

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Headaches.

2011-12-06T15:56:00.001+08:00

I keep having these splitting headaches. It really disrupts me and bothers me and I can’t do anything that I need to do because my head ACHES, damn it.

Maybe it’s the stress, and having slacked too much lately, etc etc… ARGHH. I have too many things to do. Why am I so busy all the time? Okay this is an utterly stupid question. I’m DYING. I have so many things to do, but life is like that isn’t it, it only gets busier.

I can handle it. I can, yes I can. I like to keep myself busy, that’s what I think, though it’s only partially true, but I want it to become an undisputable fact. YES, I can do this thing, come on let’s go!

Shaelyn.

2011-12-03T12:00:00.001+08:00

Because our house is not big enough, Shaelyn and I share a bed, though I’m a full-grown person and she’s as tall as a full-grown person, standing at 161cm.

It’s a queen-sized bed, which should be plenty big for us, yet it isn’t. Shaelyn doesn’t know how to keep to her side, not at all. In fact, ever since she was a littler kid (littler than now, that is) she had a habit of squeezing the person sleeping next to her to know that she’s not sleeping alone. She wakes up as soon as the bed is empty, because she just has this pathological fear of sleeping alone.

We started sharing a bed only in recent years, because she never gave up sleeping with the parents. She just refused to budge from their bed, with all sorts of excuses. And as the baby of the family, they let her. They basically threw me out from their room when I was seven, and I was so afraid of the dark too, but I got used to it I suppose, but I ended up with the habit of waking up in the middle of the night to go to the loo. I still do that. I can’t sleep through the night, I’ve never been able to, ever since I had to sleep alone.

Shaelyn sleeps with me now, and she still doesn’t sleep alone. Her entire 11 years, she went to bed alone once and just once. Even then, she was lying awake in bed until I joined her. We always put the bolster in between us as a ‘wall’, because I really need my space when I sleep. Nevertheless, the bolster always ends up on the floor, and Shaelyn always ends up on my pillow, and I always end up at the edge of the bed, which wakes me up, and I would have to push her over to her side.

So many nights I dreamt of strange objects wedging themselves in my spine, across my neck, in my stomach, hurting me so badly that I would start to cry in my dream. At dawn I would awaken to find Shaelyn’s arm across my neck, leg across my stomach, knee in my stomach or head burrowing into my spine. Even after I move her away, the dull ache remains, making me wonder how long we have been sleeping in that position.

I really need a solution to this problem. I treasure my sleep very much and this won’t do. I only ever sleep well when she is not in the same bed, and that never happens.

---

Shaelyn never wants to go to sleep at night, no matter how sleepy I am. This nasty habit started sometime before my final exams this year. Well, her own final exams were over, and she had a couple of weeks of enjoyment, which probably made her extremely happy or something, therefore every night she talks to me for hours in bed. I would tell her to go to bed, and we would be silent for half a minute tops, and she would talk again. The thing is, sometimes she makes me laugh, so I can’t help but join in the chit-chat. Besides, I was suffering from some sort of insomnia those days (insomnia doesn’t truly exist for people like me who sleeps so much) and therefore I can’t fall asleep within minutes of lying in bed. May as well talk to Shaelyn.

We end up talking for hours, and the next morning I bear the brunt of it when I have to wake up to study for my finals. It was especially bad because I had three evening papers, which meant that despite waking up at 9 in the morning, I’m always sleepy by the time I’m going in to take the paper. It’s worse because of the last minute cramming that I do on the day itself, making my head really heavy.

I always return home and promise myself an early night. I get into bed at midnight but once again Shaelyn doesn’t stop talking till 2.

---

It’s Shaelyn’s turn to bear the brunt of her midnight chats. She has to get up for tuition on Saturdays now, and today is the first lesson. Starts at 10am, so she would have had plenty of time to get ready if she gets up at 9. However, she couldn’t wake up at 9. I think we slept at 2 last night, I can’t be completely sure. I posted my blog entry at 12.45, and then got ready for bed, which meant we should have been in bed by 1am. We didn’t talk much last night either, because I was so tired I fell asleep while she was still talking.

This morning Shaelyn refused to get up. I think she’s being rebellious because she hates tuition. You see the irony of it, she wants to do well but she doesn’t want to work for it. She can definitely do well if she is willing to make good use of the resources given to her, yet she chooses to believe that she is not good enough, just to feel better about herself. It’s the mentality of ‘oh, I’m not as good as the rest, therefore I get lousy results, and that’s fine, because I’m not good enough.’

It’s bad. She refused to get out of bed as an indication that she hates tuition and hates the fact that the parents make her go. Therefore, she got up at 9.40am, which should have been the time she is in the car and on the way.

I don’t know what I would have done in her shoes. Probably just get out of bed meekly, and cry about it all morning. I don’t think I was the rebellious type. Besides, I was always so darn afraid of authority. I didn’t dare disobey, I never dared to disobey. This remains true even now, generally. See, I didn’t dare disobey even when forced to take up a tuition assignment that I wasn’t exactly keen on taking up.

Time to end this and get my day started.

The Holidays.

2011-12-02T23:32:00.001+08:00

[11.38AM]

The holidays have arrived, once again. The highlight of every student’s life. December is one of my favourite months of the year, because December has signified freedom ever since the age of 7. (Other favourite months include June, and… Okay I think that’s all. December, and June. Guess why?)

The last exam was over on Monday and since then, three completely carefree days followed. I admit, I was a slacker through and through for the past few days. But I think that’s enough, it’s time to pull those slackened strings tight once more, and systematically work through my to-do list, which is only ever extending, never shortening.

I had thought that I should feel relatively free at the end of exams, but I should have known better, after all these years. The period after the exams is always busier than that before, although the pre-exam stress far outweighs the post-exam. I’m just stopping to blog because the mind is so cluttered, and I had to take a moment to calm the fluttering waves of thoughts that never stopped. Now that it has somewhat stopped, I am going to begin my day for real.

Hopefully will be back to blog about the past three days in greater detail, especially the family stay at MBS, because that’s the highlight of this holidays.

---

[11.45AM]

Some things I really didn’t quite expect.

1. that my biological clock becomes so screwed up after the exams.
2. that I have a break-out right after the exams.

---

[11.55AM]

Just yesterday, I was thinking that I can’t wait to get my results back. I really want to know how I did. I put in quite a bit of effort this semester, though there’s HUGE room for improvement considering how I skipped many classes that I shouldn’t have, and didn’t do a single tutorial for one module. (Not even when I studied for finals, because I didn’t have time to go through those tutorials at all.)

Shame on me.

Nevertheless, I really want to know how I have done, because whether good or bad, it’ll be a boost for next year, next semester.

Well actually this sort of means that whatever the case, I should gear myself up for next semester anyway. But no, it’s kind of hard to explain why I really need the knowledge of my results in order to get into action.

I talked to Prof C for over half an hour yesterday, and he said that he’s almost done with our scores. He asked when we will get to know our results, and I told him 20th. Feels like a life time away, just as how the last day of exams felt like a lifetime ago.

Sometimes I think I use too many figures of expression, which makes me seem…

---

[12.34PM]

I’m watching Glee again.

---

[1.37PM]

I was having lunch when a phone call came in, and it was Catherine. Surprise of surprises, I thought I said that I was going to call her. So I guess Prof didn’t give me much of a choice after all, the ‘request’ for a personal favour turned out to me a DEMAND for my time.

FINE, then, it seems there’s too much authority that cannot be ignored, and despite the fact that I am an individual with my rights, I must still be subdued when it comes to such blatant display of power.

COME ON, I DIDN’T HAVE A SAY AT ALLLLLL! ):

So it’s final, my responsibilities shall begin on the 22nd, if they would even let me choose when to begin. T.T

On top of that, RESEARCH! Exciting stuff. And then, tutoring Shaelyn, which I don’t even know how to start. And then also, cleaning up this mess of a place before X arrives on the 15th… Looks like it’s going to be a busy holiday, without much time for myself to study French. BOO. ):

---

[1.48PM]

Discovered a piece of egg shell larger than a 20c coin in my porridge. T.T

---

[2.28PM]

I think, over the course of this semester, Google Calendar has evolved into one of my obsessions. I can’t stop working on my calendar omg.

---

[4.14PM]

Just finished watching another episode of Glee, because Rucha’s flight was delayed, so I felt some illusion of the abundance of time I had this afternoon, which is honestly an illusion because now I feel like crap. ):

---

[11.31PM]

Back from the airport half an hour ago, did this and that, and AH, so tired. I’m going to bed, rather than finishing this blog post properly!

---

Edit @ 12.45AM

Only now am I finally going to sleep. And it’s the hormones or something but I am so going to cry.

The after.

2011-11-29T00:57:00.001+08:00

Before versus after. It's always interesting to compare, isn't it?

I'm going to try to finish this post in 19 minutes, before my battery runs dry, and then I'm going to bed.

To start off, I really want to note down just how much I have been waiting for this day to come. The last day of exams. I am so glad my final paper is over. It didn't go very well actually. I left a lot of marks blank. But as soon as it was over, it was out of my mind, because I have this whole long 5-week stretch of nothingness ahead of me! Free, blank, for me to fill in with colours just the way I like!

It's real liberation and it feels so good. I'm welcoming the holidays and welcoming next year with so much eagerness, I'm bursting!

I think my life can be separated into so many befores and afters. Like, before exchange. After exchange. Before Ukraine. After Ukraine. And now, before today, after today. HOHO.

I think I'm a little high.

Today has stretched on extremely long, and I'm so dead tired. I feel this little ache in my temple and ouch I can't wait to get to sleep. But Braydon and Shaelyn are still talking in the next room, not very loudly but I can hear them so clearly. Braydon's sleeping over tonight.

Well, it's been an eventful day, after my last paper for this semester. [Speaking of which, this semester has been one wild ride, hasn't it? It seemed to pass in a flash, probably because I missed the first two weeks. But then, looking back, it has been really quite eventful, so how could it have passed in just a flash? This always happens doesn't it. Retrospect. It gives me new perspectives.]

I did many things today. I painted my nails (and it turned out ugly, I'm sad), settled a handful of miscellaneous things on my to-do list, read up quite a bit on miscellaneous things (Lumix and MBS and Spirited Away), watched one DVD (Spirited Away, yes, for the nth time, I can almost memorise the script now even though it's in Japanese, okay I'm exaggerating.), started on another book, took the kids out to the park, helped Mom with the Amazon purchases, watched 2 episodes of Glee. What else? Okay I think that was my day. Not in the chronological order.

I'm really looking forward to the coming holidays! I think I've said that before. And I'm ashamed of my writing abilities because I sound so disorganised and my dilemma regarding British vs American spelling has not been resolved and my grammar ahh I think I have several mistakes.

But I am going to sleep now, for a precious few hours before I get awakened by Shaelyn and Braydon in the morning. It's gonna be a great day!!

Quiet of the night.

2011-11-24T11:19:00.001+08:00

This was written last night, but the internet wasn’t working so I didn’t post it then.

I really like night time. It’s so quiet and so dark, and the weather lately has been very soothing. Well, not that I like all the rain, especially because I have to go out… But I think at this point in time I can say that I do prefer rainy weather to sunny weather. I can’t explain it, I just like it.

I feel like I’ve been working really really really hard for the past two days. I don’t know when was the last time I blogged actually. Okay, now I remember, I just blogged yesterday. :\ But no, really, I think despite blogging and going on Facebook, I can generally say that I’ve been very hardworking the past two days.

Come on, I covered half a semester’s work in those two days! That’s really quite a feat. Goes to show how much potential I have, that I leave unfulfilled mostly. (Haha, I’m particularly arrogant about myself this evening, I notice now... ) Mom said that she thinks I have reached my limit in terms of self-discipline, though I have a lot of untapped potential in terms of my intellectual capacity.

I like how highly she thinks of me. (Some sarcasm here regarding the first part of the previous sentence.)
But anyway I think she’s right, I lack the willpower to work hard unless the exams are less than 24 hours away, giving me that extra hard push.

I think I’m a little incoherent tonight, despite the environment being so nice and conducive. Probably due to brain overuse or something.

Ah, I promised myself I would study tonight, but I haven’t gotten started yet. Nevertheless, there has been some higher power controlling me, since I can’t control myself. What I mean to say is, having wasted the past three or so hours on the internet, Camilla decided to disconnect from the internet without warning, and I haven’t been able to reconnect despite trying everything.

I’m going to save this post as a draft, and get started with my studying. It’s not as though the exams are over! Why am I behaving as though it were.

Anyway, over the past two days of studying I scribbled my random thoughts all over the place, and doodled so much. Just wanted to take these two points out and post them here, because I think they’re worth remembering. The rest, quite funny and random, but I think they’re best left forgotten as time passes.

1. Feels good to be working hard together with Peiling. (:
I wrote this last night, because both Peiling and I were doing our last minute studying for Econometrics. I really liked that feeling, though it was just an exchange of a few messages, it felt good to know that someone else was working hard at the same time as I was. The first time I had this contented feeling was on 10th November, when Peiling and I were rushing our MNO report till the wee hours of the morning. We were both online, hardly talking at all, but it felt good to know that she’s there and I can talk to her anytime.
2. In McGill we could write exams in pencil!
I wrote this this morning, because I was recalling my final exams in McGill, and how different they were from final exams here.
Okay that’s enough for now.

Written @11.14pm, 23rd Nov. (Oh by the way, I thought it was Tuesday today, and implied so on Fahmi’s Facebook wall, how embarrassing, I hope no one noticed. The last time I did something this embarrassing on Facebook was when I commented on my own photo after Prof DQ said ‘Bus stop outside LT 13!!’. I replied, ‘I think you meant LT11, I have no idea where LT13 is!’ and then realised that LT13 was the subject of my photo. Darn, I hate FB and how public it is, and I hate myself more for my nasty habit of talking before I think.)

Bored studying.

2011-11-22T19:05:00.001+08:00

I'm so bored studying that without realizing it, I doodled what I smell.

A neighbour is making something delicious with sesame oil. Reminds me of cooking in Montreal and really spamming the sesame oil! I love sesame oil.

---

Last night, while asleep, I lifted one leg into the air and held it there for several seconds till Shaelyn saw me, got such a fright and woke me up.

I wonder what was wrong with me! This is embarrassing.

---

Now, back to the books. I can't believe myself, I haven't even touched the post-midterm materials for my final exam tomorrow!! My bravery is equivalent to stupidity.

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Frustrated.

2011-11-22T12:39:00.001+08:00

Sometimes I get so agitated I really lash out.

And then afterwards I feel really bad, really guilty. I’m quite a bad-tempered person, though I may not usually look it.

I think, when some things don’t go well for a period of time, frustrations accumulate. They don’t get erased after a night’s sleep, either. They carry forward to the next day, and then the next.

This morning I totally woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I’ve been rather grumpy. Not extremely so, but small signs of annoyance showed up here and there. So I holed myself up in my room and did non-academic related nonsense, though I have SO MUCH to study for my upcoming exams.

It doesn’t help that my right eye keeps twitching, and has been this way since yesterday.

There has been a whole series of unfortunate events since yesterday. Really a whole series. Sometimes I wonder if I’m attracting them to me, and if so, what did I do wrong that made me attract all these negative things? And as I type, my right eye twitches again and again. It bothers me to the maximum, and I wish it would go away.

I have been very frustrated. I really shouted at Dad just now, because he bothered me about the small matter of leaving the sink area wet after I washed my hands. I guess I felt indignant, because 8 out of 10 times I remember to dry the sink after I use it. It’s just that Shaelyn hurried home looking for her ez-link card, and Bryan is waiting for her over at Admiralty, and he didn’t carry a cell, and Shaelyn is about 20 minutes late so Bryan has been waiting, and I was frustrated because Shaelyn is blaming her tardiness on my insistence that she finished her fruit juice before leaving, and I’m angry at her for always misplacing her items, especially when she needs them most. And while we are ransacking the whole damn house for her ez-link card, kakak wouldn’t help because she’d rather cook, I told Shaelyn to call Mom because I know that Mom knows where it is, because on Saturday she gave her card to Mom when they went out for that wedding lunch, and then Dad hollered ‘who washed their hands at the sink just now!’ and I knew that DAMN, I forgot to dry that sink up just 2 minutes ago.

Sigh.

---

Yesterday’s paper went really really really badly. I couldn’t do most of the questions, and didn’t have time to finish those that I knew how to do. I think I left half of the paper blank. And for things that I didn’t leave blank, I have no confidence that I got them right. What a bad start to my exams. (But it is very cute how they fitted wooden tables to the lecture hall seats.)

After the paper, Mom came to fetch me, and our car broke down. What a day.

We waited for an hour in the middle of nowhere, the tow truck came, spent a 45 minutes or so and towed the car away. We then waited half an hour for an available taxi because we were waiting on one side of the road, then Mom realised that the other side of the road is the correct direction so we walked a whole long distance to get to the other side, but there were no free taxis at all, so we came back to this side. And all the taxis on this side were rushing to change shift or something and no one would take us.

My exam ended at 7.00pm. I was out of the exam hall at 7.08pm. I got into Mom’s car at 7.20pm. We finally made it home at 10.05pm. And then we had dinner, and it was 10.39pm. And then I had fruits, and took a bath, it was 11.09pm. I couldn’t hold up much longer, I went to bed before midnight.

Mom kept apologising. As in, KEPT apologising. She kept saying sorry for wasting my time, because I have a lot of things to study. It’s not even her fault, and I wished she would stop, and I told her to stop, but she didn’t. All of her apologies just made me more and more agitated because at first I didn’t really mind being held up for a while. I just had a really draining exam and getting home to start mugging for my next one wouldn’t have been a good thing to do in the first place. But all her apologising made me really really frustrated, like WHY can’t I be home already, I have SUCH a lot of things to do.

It was a bad night. And it turned into a bad morning, though I was certain that today would have been good. I still haven’t studied at all. I just went and sent Shaelyn (who was so terribly late) to the MRT station. Now I’m back here with my still-twitching right eye. And the immense need to study, because I don’t know a single damn thing. But not knowing where to start. Not knowing how to go about doing what I need to do because I just want time to stop, and me to have a break.

Dad is ignoring me for being rude to him.

My head hurts.

I'm whiny like an annoying kid and I hate that about myself, because when I read this again in the future I'd be ashamed.

Happy Palindromic-Date Day.

2011-11-20T16:01:00.001+08:00

It's 2011 2011!

Perfect day to be studying. (Yeah, right.)

But lately I've been sleeping too much, playing Plants vs Zombies all the time, etc...

Oh and I keep reading my past blog entries! I read all of January and February 2011, and most of March 2011. It's such a waste of time but it's really enjoyable reading what I wrote.

Makes me surprised that I had done so well in McGill, considering my effort... But then again, from the 1st to 3rd of March I didn't blog, and those two days, I remember, I was studying like REALLY studying.

Tomorrow is my first paper of this semester! I hope all goes well. I'm on my way to my straight A's for this semester!! I hope. I hope. I really hope. I mean, I bet it takes somewhat of a miracle, really. But I'm still hoping.

Judging by my effort and how far behind I am in terms of my study schedule, A's are far beyond my reach. But no harm wishing. Who knows, maybe I'll just be really clever or something?

For now, Plants vs Zombies, and then, back to the books.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

2011-11-18T17:27:00.001+08:00

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Really good read. Made me think. Touching, though I didn't cry. Would love to read it again.

View all my reviews

Safe.

2011-11-18T15:32:00.001+08:00

I haven't been studying hard, but I have been studying, at least for the past hour I have been. I keep getting distracted by small things, so I picked my pencil up and made a list, whenever my mind drifted. Which was very often, really.

1. Feel like drawing.
2. Want to design fingernail painting colours.
3. Replan timetable.
4. New shelf! (The new shelf that the parents ordered has arrived. We spent some time deciding where to place it. That was fun.)
5. I love old fashioned wooden pencils.
6. Want to take a photo of my fingernails this week, before the tips get chipped off.

And the list goes on, and I'm way way way behind on my revision schedule, but I feel so calm. Maybe it's the heavy rain outside, but I'm inside, and the orangey table lamp... I do love orangey lights, so dreamy, they make me feel.

It's so dark out, even though it's only 3 in the afternoon.

I feel so safe, and so fortunate to be a student, where my greatest worry is not scoring an A for my exams. Right now, there's only one goal I have, only one thing I need to do, which is to study.

And I love reading my textbook as though it's a storybook. I like learning new things. The annoyance only comes when my mind wanders too far to uncontrollable events, which makes me frustrated because keeping my mind occupied with things that I can't control is the biggest waste of time.

I also get frustrated when I think about how little I know relative to my peers, how much more I have to study but how slowly I'm progressing, how far away my goal of getting straight A's is...

But what does it matter? I know what I want, and if I believe, I can achieve everything that I want. I just need to know it well enough, want it enough. The power of wishful thinking is stronger than we'd expect.

The past fortnight of mad rush to meet deadlines, emotional loss of control and complacency has led me further from my reality. But I'm going to get back on track, in fact I'm getting back on track right now. It doesn't matter that my exam is in a few days' time but I haven't started on my revision. In a few days, I can achieve a lot. I just know it.

(Oh and it doesn't matter that everyone else has been mugging like crazy, showing surprise at the fact that I haven't started. Quality over quantity.)

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Now.

2011-11-17T21:54:00.001+08:00

Both parents are in the rooms, having conference calls. Dad is in his study, Mom in the bedroom.

Lynnie in the chair next to mine, exploring my phone.

Kakak cleaned up my room AND my study room today, it’s perfect now, just the way I’d always wanted it to be. I have a desk now.

Broke every single promise I made myself today. The feeling kinda sucks.

Posting this entry, is breaking one of those promises. AHH.

Tomorrow must be a better day. I must study.

List of thoughts.

2011-11-17T20:34:00.001+08:00

Wrote this post last night, but didn’t post it before bedtime because Camilla’s battery went flat while I was watching that silly video of us in Ukraine. I didn’t bother to restart just to post this entry.

1. Group of little children downstairs, screaming at the top of their lungs, Justin Bieber’s “Baby”. Very cute.
2. Often find myself wishing the neighbour from I don’t know where would start to play the piano, because it sounds wonderful. Positive externality!
3. Sometimes I wonder if Dad lectures me for my sake, or for his. It doesn’t really matter, everyone needs to have some reason and some purpose. I wonder if lecturing me gives more to him, or to me.
4. Dad says I need to listen. I know that already, but I haven’t been thinking about that. All sorts of signs all over the place giving me hint that I should talk less and listen more. It’s really time I start listening.
5. I take so many things for granted: food, shelter, clothes, hot showers, good sleep, friends, understanding, appreciation, relations, opportunities, emotions.
6. Seeking inspiration in all the wrong places?
7. Language is never a barrier, that’s why I find myself on Google Translate so often, trying so hard to understand…
8. Finding it hardest to focus at the time when I most need to.
9. There’s always that period of time, when we first make friends with someone, the awkwardness, the wanting to know more, the worrying about how they see us, the hesitation before every action, the ‘just go for it’ mindset. And then we come to the stage of comfort, when we show our true selves, do as we please, accept and understand, truly enjoy each others’ presence. But then we may start to have conflicts, misunderstandings that neither party wants to address, and we pretend, pretend that nothing is wrong, and we say to ourselves, ‘we are friends, we accept each other.’ And then what?
10. Most times I don’t think, some times I think too much.
11. My body likes to fail me when a period of stress lies ahead. Or maybe that’s because I have been stressing myself unnecessarily when I didn’t need to, shouldn’t have.
12. I’m not posting this till I go to bed, just in case I have more to add to it.
13. I want a sub-list of what I don’t like about myself:
a. I whine about small things.
b. I talk about myself too much.
c. I don’t listen, and when I do, I’m not attentive enough.
d. I have a too selective memory.
e. I like making lists about myself, and that’s so self-centred.
f. I am too sure of myself sometimes, and when I’m not sure of myself, I’m still sure of the certainty of my thoughts. Basically, I’m not very receptive.
g. I’m a bit obsessive sometimes. Okay, fine, ALWAYS. I’m easily obsessed with things. Very obsessed. Crazy. Out of control. For instance, I may check my email 50 times a day.
14. When I saw my exam venue for Labor Economics, and thought I saw LT8, I zoomed in three times, and realized to my surprise that it was indeed LT8. What the?

Study week begins for me.

2011-11-17T10:11:00.001+08:00

I'm in the room again, the one that we always go to for our various project meetings throughout this semester. It seems as though every semester, I, or we, have some kind of favourite haunt on campus. This room, it reminds me so much of all of us, and it feels so strange to be here, knowing that the rest of them won't be here today.

This is our secret place. It's perfect, it's almost always empty, we always make so much noise that we chase everyone else away. It's our room. It belongs to the school but somehow it doesn't feel anything like a public place. It's our place!

I'm alone here today. Not the first time being the first to arrive, not the first time switching the lights on, as though it's my room. But today I feel kind of nervous to be here. I wish Jun Wei will come soon, then at least I'd have company.

Interestingly, if I were alone in school, like yesterday, I never would have thought of coming to this room. Today, I wonder if this is the last time I'm in this room for this semester. I think I should take a picture.

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Reflecting, or just rambling, I’m not sure.

2011-11-16T20:10:00.001+08:00

Dinner conversation on 16^th Nov 2011

It’s been a while since I wrote a reflection piece.

4 days to my first exam paper, utterly unprepared, just done with a project that I was not satisfied with in any sense at all, I sat at the dinner table with Dad.

We were talking about my application to attend the MFA Tea Session. A small matter with my reluctance to make a phone call to ask about certain things led to a discussion about my character flaws.

That led me to voice my concerns regarding my inability to work well in a group, inability to discern what is required of me in preparing a good presentation, inability to present.

We talked a lot, sometimes I felt like we were talking about different things at the same time.

It’s just that Dad asked me to reflect more. Because through this conversation I realized that I had never reflected much about all of my problems. He said I just brush things aside, say ‘never mind’ to myself, in my heart. And he’s so right. And perhaps if I reflected a bit more, sorted my worries and concerns out, I’d realize what my real problems are, and how I should go about solving them.

I often say that I’m not emotional, but perhaps I am. Perhaps I am emotional, but insensitive. I’m so caught up with my own emotions that I become oblivious to the needs of those around me. I become so caught up with my own emotions that I can’t tell problems apart from my imagination.

Dad said to me,

“Why are you always so certain of your thoughts?”

“How do you know what you think is the truth?”

“You’re contradicting yourself. You worry about things and you want feedback, but when you do get the feedback, you choose not to believe what people say.”

“You know what you need to do, obviously you haven’t done any reflection yourself, before this conversation.”

(Then I said, I don’t know how to stop to reflect. He replied, “Do you mean start to reflect?” And then I didn’t know what I was trying to say anymore.)

What good.

2011-11-11T11:42:00.001+08:00

What good is it, if it isn't any good?

Well then make it good, whatever it takes.

But then again, sometimes, there's just nothing else to be done about it, and that means, it's time to let it go!

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Tomorrow.

2011-11-10T13:40:00.001+08:00

I’ve been waiting.

Quick post, an escape from studies.

2011-11-07T21:17:00.001+08:00

You know what I like about uni? Every time, just as I think I'm about to die, the semester comes to an end. I get a nice long break, during which I get to do some travelling (except that this has now become a thing of the past because there shall be no more travelling for me). And then, a new semester begins and I get to do everything all over again. I get to start afresh.

If only real life were as good as this sounds.

---

I love it when sometimes I have such a sweet dream that I don't even want to wake up. Some point in the dream I'd realise that I'm dreaming, but that's okay, as long as I don't wake up. And then some point in time I will wake up, and I'd be thinking, what a wonderful dream, I don't want it to end. Then I'd close my eyes and go right back dreaming. When I wake up eventually, there's no regret. Instead, I start the day in such a good mood. It's wonderful.

It happened last Wednesday. Can it happen again this week?

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Encore, j'écris.

2011-11-06T19:59:00.001+08:00

The title is in French, because a night or two ago, I had a dream and in my dream I was obliged to speak French. Okay, not the first time that happened, but it was the first time I found myself at a total loss of words, which goes to show how my already dismal grasp of basic French has diminished to nothing.

(In the past, when I have those dreams, I would wake up with French phrases running through my brain, feeling surprised by the vocabulary that I managed to recall in my sleep.)

Lately, I write, and I keep writing. I don’t know why I enjoy blogging so much when I am supposed to be doing work. I can even write a whole long post about a lost umbrella. Goodness, what is wrong with me, do I really have that much time to spare?

While other undergraduates are talking about not having enough sleep, I’m clocking a healthy 9 hours on average. While other undergraduates are filling their schedules with work, tuition sessions, driving lessons, extracurricular activities, I’m watching tv and reading novels. WHAT IS WRONG? I mean, I don’t know if I should go change my lifestyle entirely, or something. Why is everyone else so busy, while I am not? Why does everyone else have so much energy to do so many things, while I am just spending so much time relaxing?

This afternoon I attempted to revise Econometrics so as to do my assignment. Not surprisingly, I gave up halfway and started skimming through, with the ‘I know, I know’ kind of attitude. The terrible thing is, I don’t know at all. I still have Finance to study for tomorrow, so I really don’t know how I’m supposed to finish my assignment by tonight. I get distracted by everything, really.

Oh dear, I realised that I have lost my train of thought. Must be the guilt, or something. I’m just going to post this, and get back to work, because for the whole afternoon, I haven’t been working. I have just been pretending to work, like the JC days. Not good at all.

Oh yes, I remembered, this afternoon while I was ‘studying’, every once in a while I found myself picking up my pencil to scribble something on a piece of paper. This is the result. A list:

1. I’m addicted to checking my email.
2. I blog when nothing else in life captures my attention.
3. I enjoy checking the mailbox everyday and slotting the mail into the mail holder. (According to which parent the mail is addressed to.)
4. Our neighbour plays the piano really well.
5. I shall not read Ch. 1 of the Econometrics textbook ever again.
6. I shall skim Ch. 2 when I study for finals.

I have no life. I miss Ukraine, and my friends. Okay, not just Ukraine. I miss this summer in general.

Oh yeah, and I remember, one of the things I wanted to lament about: Dad has sentenced me to life imprisonment in Singapore until I graduate. Okay, that’s not life imprisonment, it’s just… I AM DISALLOWED TO TRAVEL ABROAD UNTIL MAY 2013. What in the world???

Because of this, the plans for Langkawi this year end had to be cancelled. And apparently, because I’m not going, Lainey didn’t want to go either (I suppose since she’s the only girl), and therefore the entire plan was scrapped. I feel terrible.

And now, what about NYC 2013?? Come on, I gave up going to Turkey this winter. Guru is going to Poland, all the way from India! We could have met in Turkey. If I were going to Turkey, I’d see all the 5 Turkish boys, Merve, Ada too, because they’re all in Turkey. And if I were going to Turkey, Serezha said he would go too, and Sasha as well. Look, it would have been a reunion. But no, I’m not going to Turkey because I know it costs too much. I’m not irresponsible. But not even Langkawi this December with my favourite HKMUNers?? It can kill me. And yes, what about NYC 2013? I wouldn’t be allowed to go either, and that’s like, going back on all of my promises to all of my friends.

Look, I’m not going anywhere, until graduation.

See, this link has been circulating around Facebook. While I don’t entirely agree with the author, I feel strongly about the subject. I feel strongly about travelling, adventures, stepping out into the world while I’m young and daring. I want to do it. But see, the author failed to take into account the family factor. While young people don’t have a spouse and children to tie them down, they do have parents.

The Circle.

2011-11-05T12:38:00.001+08:00

The Circle by Laura Day
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like the idea, and I like some of the quotes if they are taken out of context, but this whole book brings something to be desired.

View all my reviews

Rainkist.

2011-11-05T11:17:00.001+08:00

I used to have an umbrella, it's red and it's small. It's the lightest and smallest umbrella I've ever owned. Mom gave it to me when she visited me in New Jersey last summer, after her conference in New Hampshire. In fact, that's where the umbrella came from, the conference - from the Smith College for Women. And it says so, neatly along the side of it.

Actually, Mom loved that umbrella as much as I did, but gave it to me because she could tell how much I liked it. She left three days later, and left the umbrella with me, and it has been with me ever since. Every journey that I took to every part of the world since last summer, the umbrella went too. (And that, really, has been quite a lot of places.)

I remember that one photo I took in Wildwood, the day after Mom left for Ohio. I was holding it, smiling so gleefully next to Haohan, whom I forced to hold my purple umbrella to go with his purple shirt. I guess that's the only tangible thing that remains with my memory of the umbrella's existence in my life. Oh, and it's cover. Empty now, because the umbrella is forever gone.

Its silver plastic handle is perhaps the cutest part of it, though it's unnoticeable to anyone but me, for I'm holding the umbrella. It's rectangular with rounded edges, and says 'rainkist' in black. The font, I love it, the dots on the i's look like raindrops. Sometimes when I was dangling the umbrella upside down from the little black cord, after a walk in the rain, I would look at the word and think that I really want to take a picture of it.

When I left it under my chair yesterday, I was hoping to let it dry for a while longer. It was a bad move, and the most regrettable action ever, because I left it there forgotten. The thing is, it's so stupid. If only I hadn't changed plans yesterday when I walked out the library entrance, I wouldn't have turned back in. I wouldn't have put my umbrella down. I wouldn't have got my head bursting with unanswered questions from my assignment by 7pm, forgetting about my umbrella under my chair. I wouldn't have laid eyes on the strange man who caught my attention, and took it away from my usual habit of checking my seat when I leave.

Wouldn't have. If only.

Even last night after getting home, I was sure I'd be able to get it back today, when I make a trip specially to ask at the lost & found. But today, back at the library, I was met with nothing. The librarian kindly told me that someone probably took it, since it was raining last night at closing time. Sometimes, wishful thinking just isn't enough to grant a wish.

Damn the person who took it, it's just an umbrella to them but it's more than that to me. The gain they got from being finders keepers for the day, left me with a loss that far outweighs their gain. It's not just any umbrella. It was MY umbrella. Money can't buy back the same one. The little red umbrella, a brighter red than any I've seen.

You may say it's just an umbrella, nothing to get so upset about. But remember, in Kiev, when Syaza borrowed it away to another city and returned it a few days later, I felt that sense of reunion that only comes when one is reunited with an item of sentiment.

And remember, that night in Kiev, walking with Serezha from Petrivka all the way home to Minska, the drizzle started just as Pryrichna came into view, and I tried to force him to take the umbrella because he had to walk half an hour back to his sister's place at Obolon, but he didn't, he pointed to the sky and said, ' Look, it's not training in Obolon.'

Oh and the other night, when we sent Carson off to L'viv, and Guru left in a taxi, the rain came pouring down, Serezha and I were in front of the Hotel Dnipro, he was calling for a taxi, I took my umbrella out and 'oh,' he laughed, 'your umbrella is so small.' 'No, it's big enough for me,' I retorted, but still we ran down to the underpass for cover, and every couple of minutes he took my umbrella and ran up to check the road if the taxi had arrived.

Just a few weeks ago, at NUS, I was walking down the slope from the Deck to business school. A message came in from Alvin, 'Yeevet! I see you and your red umbrella!' And I replied, 'Elveen! Hello from me and my red umbrella!'

You see, it's memories. It's not just an umbrella that can be so easily replaced. But what, now? It has to be replaced, because I lost it.

And there's no mood to blog about the 5th of November, so go look up last year's entry, or the year before, or the year before last, I know one of these years I must have blogged about this date.

One last thought. If ever there's someone around holding a small red umbrella with white words that say Smith College for Women, that's mine. Because that umbrella couldn't possibly have come from anywhere else. I'm going to meet such a person and reclaim my umbrella. Look out, it's been raining so frequently, I'm so going to find my umbrella back.

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Friday night.

2011-11-04T21:56:00.001+08:00

Back to NUS on a quiet Friday night to submit my assignment. It has been a tiring day, blame it on myself for wasting last night away.

I had a hard time falling asleep after posting that entry last night. I felt so restless. It's like I'm longing for something in life, some excitement, something extraordinary. I didn't want to just let myself sleep with the resignation that another day has passed.

Woke up this morning though I was still sleepy. I kinda just walked out of bed and into the living room without being awake at all. My heart goes very fast when I force myself awake like that. I sat on the sofa and watched my t-shirt tremble with the quick flutter of my heartbeat.

As soon as I got myself ready, I was out the door in the glaring sunlight to collect the visa approval from the kindergarten for the little cousin. I felt like a giant there. They are so tiny, tiny little people walking around.

It was with much reluctance that I started on my assignment late this morning. Most of the time I felt I wasn't quite awake at all, but I didn't really stop doing it at all. I just progressed very, very slowly...

Lunch was delicious, while Dad sat eating at the sofa flipping through the papers and Shaelyn and I sat silently facing each other at the dining table. And then Shaelyn mentioned something about a career talk in school (my goodness they have such talks for 11-year-olds now, unbelievable) and that launched Dad into lecture mode, which was not good for our ears at all.

Decided over lunch to escort Shaelyn to piano lesson since it was raining, which meant I had to pack my dress which I was lending Christine, and all my homework too. Major change of plans; I initially intended to complete my assignment, go to NUS, come back and get the dress, then go over to have dinner with Shaelyn.

On the mrt, Shaelyn sounded upset that I wasn't going to be there during her 45 minute break after piano & theory. Well, I didn't see much of a difference from the usual, since she always just says hi and bye and spends the rest of the time at level 4, while I stay at level 2, if I happen to be there. Nevertheless I told her I'll stay if that's what she prefers, and go to NUS after she leaves for her tuition, if that's what she prefers. And that's what I did.

Unfortunately, by 5pm I wasn't quite done with my assignment which was a lot more trouble than usual. I was out the entrance of the library, prepared to make a dash for NUS and pray that I can finish the last two questions on the way, when I realised that's a really stupid plan. I called Dad to make sure he could come fetch Shaelyn at night, and he said yes, so once again I changed my plans.

Back into the library I went, and I went through my assignment more carefully. Before I knew it, 7pm drew close, so I finished up (with unsatisfactory quality), sent Shaelyn an sms, packed up and left for McDonald's.

Dinner was quick, because Shaelyn has only 40 minutes. Shaker fries, super fun.

Gave the dress to Shaelyn with instructions to pass it to Christine's mom after her lesson, and sorry I couldn't be there to do it instead. Sent Aunty a message with apologies and reasons, and off I dashed to NUS.

It was a peaceful ride to school. There was a little girl about 8 years old on the circle line MRT, with a red Little Miss Chatterbox t-shirt, 3 quarter tights, flip-flops and bright red toenails. She's lovely and spoke very well. She asked her Dad, 'How many cars are there on a train?' And then she commented, 'I feel like I'm in London.' Ah, that explains her accent. How nice, someday I'll be in London too, I know it.

Well, I've said it too many times before, but really, I love the circle line. I see many interesting people on it.

The other day I saw a girl in faded black jeans and ankle-high black sneakers that look more like boots than sneakers. She was wearing a tank top with the galaxy on it, might have been the exact same one I saw in a picture on weheartit many many moons ago, and hearted it. (I may post a picture someday.) It's dark blue like the night sky and the galaxy is a beautiful yellowish swirl. Even the back of the top is the galaxy, I saw it when the girl alighted. The most exciting part of her outfit was her bowler hat, it went perfect with her straight black hair that hung beyond her shoulders, and it was the thing that made her pop from the crowd.

[Edit@1.08AM the next morning: here's the photo from weheartit. But it's totally different from the one the girl wore. I guess my memory failed me. ): The girl's tank top was sleeveless, and many times more breathtakingly beautiful compared to this galaxy. But you get the idea.]

I love seeing people that stand from the crowd in elegant manners, be it in terms of dress or demeanour. Not outlandish, just genuinely themselves, each of them an individual beautiful in their own ways.

Well, Dad's car should be here soon, how nice of him to offer to meet me halfway to fetch me home, after fetching Shaelyn, whose busy Friday has finally come to an end. And so has mine, it seems.

Tomorrow, one of my favourite dates of the year, and I will blog again to commemorate it. Oh, lately I've been blogging such mundane content!

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Middle of the day. (And then night.)

2011-11-03T23:46:00.000+08:00

This was drafted while I was sitting at the Deck earlier this afternoon, waiting for JY to come meet me for lunch.

I have accumulated some thoughts over the past few hours of this brand new day on the 3rd of November, and I have decided to take a little pocket of time to blog about it, you know it’s just one of those moments that I just SO feel like writing.

Bumped into Lainey just a couple of minutes ago, and the first thing she said to me was ‘you look so stressed!’ Did I really? I wasn’t the least bit stressed, and I was thinking about some things, but I wasn’t sure what I was thinking about because my mind is constantly thinking and I’m never conscious of the thoughts, unless I am doing conscious thinking, but no, most of the time my thinking takes place unconsciously.

Well obviously I immediately schooled my features to portray a neutral image, but then I wasn’t sure what looks neutral. It got me thinking for a minute or two about how I look to people. Not that it is something that really bothers me, but I’m just afraid that people draw the wrong idea from my facial expression about how I am feeling, and thus make certain assumptions. I don’t like that, I don’t want that. But I think it happens more often than I dare to think.

---

During lecture this morning I didn’t pay much attention, but hey, at least I attended. I like this professor, really, but I only have this one lesson on Thursdays and I so often just don’t feel like coming. Besides, I have lagged behind far too much to understand a single thing. And I have a very short attention span when it comes to listening to lectures. I drift off and end up wasting my time.

Which was kinda what I did today. But anyway she was talking about options, which I think I can catch up with pretty quickly, so I’m not too worried. What I’m worried about is the quiz come next Tuesday, which covers all those lectures that I skipped, and DOES NOT cover options. Sigh.

Options. Black-Scholes. Ah, it so very much reminds me of Montreal, McGill, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 in the morning. Climbing up that oh-so steep slope along that road that I don’t remember the name of, oh was it Peel? Or de Maisonneuve? And of the professor, I forget his name, oh what was it, Tom something? (Tom Velk, now I remember, 8 hours later.)

Ah, memories of winter, the class full of intelligent students, the ‘Green Book’, Wikipedia (saving my life again and again, what’s a butterfly call option...)

--- Paused for lunch. ---

Okay I think I’ll just post this now and edit later, cos I have a busy afternoon and evening ahead.

--- Here's where I continue, many many hours later. ---

So as I was saying earlier today, I was not paying attention during class. I was on weheartit and this picture took my breath away.

It gives me the blissful-sigh effect. Oh so lovely, it takes me to another place.

And then many more pictures took my breath away, and I spent some time looking at pictures related to Snape, after sharing one on Facebook last night I suddenly feel all Snape-fangirl-ish, and as I had expected, the same one was easily found on weheartit so I hearted it, but those I shall not be bothered to share because I've already spent too much time doing things I like to do, rather than things I ought to do.

---

Nevertheless I must finish what I wanted to say, though the title has now been changed from 'Middle of the day.' to 'Middle of the day. (And then night.)'

Today was a rather eventful day, and it was nice. Spent lunch talking to JY, we haven't talked in a long time, so long I don't even remember anymore.

Went for MNO meeting afterwards and it was as usual enjoyable company but unproductive in terms of getting our work done. Oh we celebrated Leanne's birthday (belated) thanks to Peiling who bought the cake. It was so lovely, I was so happy. It was an angry birds cake, too awesome.

It was 6.01 when I realised that I was supposed to be somewhere else a minute ago; the one-on-one with Jason aka Pikaboss omg I was late. I was in such a hurry I did some crazy stupid things and flew out of the room as fast as I could pack.

Pikapikaboss was not angry, he never is. But the first thing he said to me was, 'you look so tired'. OH MY GOODNESS, second time in a day that someone comments on my look in a not-so-desirable way. Did I really look so tired?

After the serious part of the meeting we started to talk nonsense which wasn't half as nonsensical as our other usual meetings during which I'm more in the mood for jokes and laughs. Well, I asked if I really looked terrible and the unfortunate answer was yes, I didn't look very well. WHAT'S WRONG? I guess some things are troubling me a little and I had 7 hours of sleep instead of 10 last night but hey, having less sleep is a good thing for me. And well, perhaps it's because of the work I have to do, and oh God look at me now I'm not doing any, on purpose, defiantly going against my plans for myself, I'm horrible.

And I felt kinda guilty at the end of the meeting just because I didn't think I said many useful things and there were moments of awkward silences which isn't supposed to happen during ICX meetings, even if it's one-on-one.

When I was home, I tried to apologise to Pikachu-the-boss about it but I didn't know how to start. And then I realised that there was nothing to apologise to him about, because I was guilty towards myself. 对不起的其实是自己，并没有必要跟他人道歉。

What to do? Just be a better me the next time.

---

Bumped into Danielle on the train, it was nice, she called out to me from the other side of the car and it was good to see a familiar face. I like Danielle but today I was awkward-me so conversation didn't turn out well. She's just this real awesome girl I think.

At least she didn't say that I looked stressed or tired or about to die. The first thing she told me was that I currently hold the highest vote for Ms. Photogenic in our LC. Oh, wow, what an honour. I checked Facebook and oh my, so it's true. Wasn't aware at all, I didn't even vote for any of the titles except the dodgy one, because Yi An should win that title hands down.

---

Came home and tried helping Shaelyn finish her individual project on the ancient civilizations. Was having dinner while giving her ideas on her poem.

I was sitting alone at the dining table because I got home too late and was eating alone. Shaelyn was complaining about her poem from the sofa. I half turned in my chair to face her. Off the top of my head, I went, 'Long long ago/In a land far away/The Mayan people lived/In houses made of clay.' And then I asked her, 'Wait, what do they use to build their houses? Clay??'

Shaelyn ran into her room to get her research. 'No, they used limestone and (blahblahblah I don't remember anymore.)'

Oh. I was disappointed. And then I went once more, 'A long time ago, in a land far away,' and then I continued singing, 'there lived pineapple princess Tikki!' And then Shaelyn joined in 'She was sweet as a peach in her pineapple way but it was sad she could hardly speaky!'

We ended up singing all the way to humu humu nuku nuku apu wa ah.

And then when we dismissed that as a stupid digression, I asked, 'Why not write a haiku?'

Shaelyn: Cannot la! Haiku is the very short one right? The syllables one?
Me: Mmhmm, it's the easiest. You've learnt it before right? Just write a haiku!
Shaelyn: That one is the 5-7-5? Or 5-11-5?
Me: 5-7-5. It's very easy, let's see. A long time ago/There were civilizations/Such as the Mayan.

And then we fell over laughing at how stupid that was, but in between my laughter I went on, counting the syllables on my fingers, They lived in houses/That were made of limestone and/Other materials.

That just made us laugh even harder, and Shaelyn exclaimed incredulously, 'OF COURSE THEY LIVED IN HOUSES!!'

Shaelyn then ignored me and asked her friends online to help. I chewed on my food for a silent half minute and suddenly burst out, 'Roses are red, violets are blue. Mayans are aliens, and so are you!'

Cue one more round of laughter, please. We could hardly stop.

Shaelyn then started quoting her friend Fang Ting's poem, which was ridiculously funny in a good and cute way, just the kind of poem an 11-year-old is capable of writing.

Eventually I brushed Shaelyn aside, finished my dinner, looked over her research and took over her laptop.

The eventual product turned out to be this:

Mayans were great,
Mayans were clever.
Mayans believed they would last forever.

But Mayans died out,
some 2000 years ago.
All they left behind were buildings like Lego.

Their values and beliefs,
Brought me no relief.
Human sacrifices were cruel beyond belief.

Mayans intrigue me,
perhaps they will intrigue you too.
If you want to know more you should read a book or two!

OH IT IS SUCH A BAD POEM! But okay, the work of 10 minutes, with 1 word input from Shaelyn (read: Lego) and 1 line inspiration from Fang Ting (read: make me feel relief??) and a lot of laughter in between.

Shaelyn feels very proud of me. Wait till she gains another 2 years or so, and look at it again. I think she'd be ashamed of her big sister who, at age 21, wrote such a ridiculous poem, and then took a webcam video together with her, synchronizing our licking of chocolate wrappers and laughing our heads off making the ugliest faces you can ever imagine.

---

Tonight I didn't do anything I had planned to do. Therefore, bedtime, so that tomorrow morning I can make things right again. Good night sleep tight and hooray for abrupt endings.

Midnight thoughts.

2011-11-03T01:40:00.001+08:00

Some moments ago, I really didn’t think I’d be blogging. I didn’t think I had anything creative to put into words. But moments later, I’m sitting on my bed with my wet hair dripping into my lap, the swivel fan on sleeping mode sending a gentle breeze every 5 seconds, the curtains half drawn, earphones plugged in with some MIKA playing, and it feels so right to just open Windows Live Writer and type away without caring what exactly I’m typing.

Music.
Earlier today I was thinking about Queen, and how I haven’t listened to their songs in quite a while. The fervour from my younger years have left, but I have never stopped appreciating their music. It may sound old-fashioned today, but oh in those days, they were groundbreaking, amazing, talented and rocking the world. (Well I wasn’t there, but, I know it. And if I could, I’d want to be back in time just to see them live, as I’ve mentioned many times before…)

And now, MIKA, haven’t listened to his songs in quite a while either… I guess I don’t really listen to music much from day to day, you see, except every once in a while when a song runs through my head non-stop I go listen to it just so that it gets out of my head. It works for me, you know, I don’t know if it does for other people but it works for me. I really like MIKA’s songs, haven’t heard a single one that I don’t. I like the upbeat ones and I like those that are tinged with a bit of sadness, too. I like the quicker ones and the slower ones too. Ah, so similar to how I love all those Queen songs.

I think, it’s because of MIKA that I never found Chris Colfer’s voice extremely high-pitched. MIKA has a high-pitched voice too. I like Kurt Hummel oh so much yes I do. I think I always have a soft spot for gay characters, must have been the research project when I was in Sec 2. Ah, dearest LH and her crazy ideas about our research studies, and us following through with a year-long look into controversial matters of homosexuality. All done at a young age of 13 – 14! It’s no wonder I am particularly open to homosexuals and homosexuality. I find it all fascinating and I love the diversity of humankind.

Matters in and out of the mind.
I feel a sense of liberation when mom is not around, and that’s when I realised that when she is around, I’m constantly worrying about her. I’m constantly thinking about her, whether she’s coping, whether I can squeeze more time out to spend with her, if there’s anything I can help her with…

Now that she’s going on a trip, though a short one, I effortlessly put her completely out of my mind! It’s no wonder I forget about people so easily, or rather, I forget about feelings for people so easily, once they’re not around, it’s like I truly live by the saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’, and oh it’s extreme.

It’s just an observation, nothing else.

Writing.
Some people’s blogs (read: Gerry, Pan Pan, Evelyn) really inspire me. Love how it keeps me wanting to read more, because something about their lives, their blogs, the way they write and dot their posts with those pretty pictures, oh it draws me in and keeps me there.

I like the feeling of ‘oh life is so perfect and happy’ when I read those blogs. Suffused with positivity! I love it. Well, not always full of positivity because life does have its ups and downs, but the downs never bring complaints, just more of a funny comment, exasperated sentence, and more often than not a result of retrospective musing.

For P’s blog, I love her literary references, the way her words bring goosebumps to my skin because they are so true and touching. The way she questions us about things that we don’t usually think about, all through light-hearted retelling of her own stories.

There were points when I wished I could write like that, to inspire myself through inspiring others. But then I thought, hey I’m just me, and I’m a wonderful me. I don’t have to do it like the other people do, because I have my own reasons for writing, and it’s just… it’s different. They are writing more for others to read, whereas I write for no one but me, and as long as I can understand myself, it’s perfect.

Wanting more.
I used to feel that I was always right.

I felt this way until… until very recently, I think. I mean, that statement is a generalization. Of course I didn’t feel that I was always right. It was more of a feeling like I always know what’s right and what’s wrong, what I should be doing etc. And also, that my character was pretty awesome, with no glaring things that were ‘wrong’.

But then I realised that no, I’m far from it. I’m noticing so many little imperfections in so many parts of me. In the way I react to things, the way I make decisions. The way I don’t take advice, don’t listen hard enough. And oh so much more.

And I’m so glad I realised it, because awareness is the first step, the step before change. I’m going to change, I’m constantly changing yes I know that but what I mean is I’m going to keep changing and always changing for the better. It makes me look forward to knowing myself all over again, knowing the new me with fewer and fewer regrets as time goes by.

Never wanting this to end.
In the quietness of the night, I wish time could stand still. All my worries can just fade to the back of my mind. In this silence the world belongs to me.

But then again, I’ve never quite given up at being a morning person. I haven’t decided what I really want about this, but I have a feeling I should make up my mind pretty soon, because I do like some kind of definition about who I am.

Plus.
I like positive. I like optimistic. I like happy. I like all things that are associated with hope.

I like to keep myself feeling this way, though I know that doesn’t happen… But it’s okay, because every time I slide down into unhappiness I know I will be able to get out of it.

And when things are good, good things keep coming and coming.

Yesterday when Fahmi said ‘you’re too optimistic!’, I simply replied, ‘never too optimistic!’ Because that’s what I truly believe. If you believe in the power of yourself and those around you, and in fact the entire universe, there’s never too optimistic.

You can achieve anything you want, as long as you want it bad enough. Really and truly.

Another Monday.

2011-10-31T09:53:00.001+08:00

Last night I watched a scary movie despite having work to do. I ended up unable to go to sleep at half past one in the morning, alone in my room, feeling extremely sensitive to every sound.

This morning, I couldn't get out of bed, thus missed the last 8am lecture of the semester. Ended up lazing in bed at half past eight though I was already awake, thus left myself with insufficient time to get ready. Now I'm going to be late for my 10am lecture.

Tomorrow it's the debate day. I don't feel prepared. Then again, I feel better than last week, after taking to Dad about things. I wish I had the same kind of logic. Everything comes to him so easily! There's nothing more he can help with, though.

This post is getting unbelievably boring. I'm bored writing it. I should probably end it.

Oh but I just have to say, I'm wishing that when I speak during debate tomorrow, I actually sound clever, unlike how I did during sales training on Saturday. Oh, man, that was when I realised how bad I am at thinking on my feet! I couldn't find my words at all, couldn't even say a single sentence without stopping in the middle, asking my partner to give me a second to collect my thoughts. Come on, what if it's the real thing?? I was terrible at it. Needs practise, sigh.

Wish me luck.

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Mirth.

2011-10-27T21:55:00.001+08:00

What do you do if you're on a crowded MRT on your way home, and there's a young couple, a few feet away from you, flirting like two little bunnies in spring, amusing themselves with their non-stop role plays?

They are non-local ethnic Chinese, speaking in English laced with a faint American accent. The boy is stylishly dressed, the girl is in school uniform which I don't recognise. Probably children of expats.

It's so funny, these two kids, barely 16 I would say, one moment hugging each other and the next pretending to hate each other. Especially the girl. 'I have enough friends, I don't need another.' / 'I don't like your shoes.' / 'Talk to the hand.' / 'Why don't you get a haircut first before you come and talk to me?'

Obviously she's amusing herself very much, and the boy is humouring her. But me, I'm having a hard time pretending not to notice, and not bursting into laughter any moment at the incredulity of this situation.

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Collection of random thoughts.

2011-10-24T15:34:00.001+08:00

I'm pretty sure that I've once titled a post as above. My entire life is a series of collections of random thoughts, I think.

Today, I was sitting in my Macroeconomics lecture languidly copying Peiling's notes (as I arrived in class late and didn't manage to copy some things) when unbidden, a pungently fresh scene flashed through my mind. New York City, the view of the Manhattan skyline from the East river. I don't know why such a random scene came to mind, but I swear I could almost feel the New York sunshine on my skin, the gentle rocking of the Circle Line cruise boat that my imaginary self was on. Upper deck. When will I be back again?

I like to mention things to my parents, news that I hear from people around me that I didn't expect my parents to know. But they always know. Over lunch on Sunday I mentioned the acquisition of Cadbury, because Shaelyn took out a bar of Cadbury chocolate and was sharing it. I went something like, 'Oh did you know, my friend said that Cadbury was acquired by... Wait what company was that...?' I was thinking hard, when my dad seamlessly completed my incomplete thoughts, 'Kraft. Cadbury was acquired buy Kraft.' When I incredulously asked him how he knew (we know about it because we're doing our big project on acquisitions and such), he said that his company was handling the acquisition and he was just working on merging the existing networks of those two companies. Why can't I ever tell them something they don't already know? I guess this is why other people can go into arguments with their parents and win, whereas I always lose to one or the other of them... Or both.

Glee got me really hooked lately. I've found it my full time career to familiarise myself with so much Glee trivia, I think I can call myself a Gleek. And I'm not very happy about that...

Okay, we're pulling into my station so I'll end here. So many intriguing random thoughts cross my mind so often, but I never write them down, and then I forget them!! It's saddening.

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Pencil.

2011-10-20T15:25:00.001+08:00

[Edit]
I've added in the pictures. Notice that I was creative with my fingernails this week. Well, just more creative than usual. Success at first try, how awesome.

Among my daily possessions, I think the one which is most precious to me is my pencil. The one which I bought from the Shinyokohama Raumen Museum in 2004. I've had a couple of times when I thought I lost it (but thank goodness it's always a false alarm) and the panic which seizes me is always overwhelming. Therefore I decided to immortalise this pencil's existence by taking two photographs of it, and blogging about it. Hopefully this doesn't become some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, making me lose it one of these days. I really don't know what I'd do if I lost it. Probably mourn for days.

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Bad day turned good.

2011-10-19T21:51:00.001+08:00

I’m blogging a quick one to commemorate this special day. Today was a bad day turned good, and this doesn’t happen very frequently, so I wanna note it down to look back fondly upon.

The past few days have been rather hectic because I put off my studying to the last minute again. After yesterday’s quiz and midterm, I surprisingly didn’t feel any sense of relief, which was greatly disappointing. I did make some new friends from the Org Eff class, though, which was good. The few of us from our project group also had a very enjoyable meeting, laughing about every single little thing.

Well, it’s just like that. On a day-to-day basis, there’s always something to laugh and joke about, which come to think of it, is truly a blessing. But there often isn’t anything in the big picture to look forward to, which is somewhat unfortunate.

The big picture, knowing where I was heading, loving everything about my life, was what I enjoyed so much about the past summer. Losing it and falling back into the mundane life that I’ve always led was a bit of a disappointment. I think everyone goes through this.

Today started off sleepy, because I stayed up last night reading about Yulia Tymoshenko. Ever since seeing those parades along Khreshatyk, and then her picture on the papers in Natalya’s house, I’ve been very intrigued. What with the recent news (that I saw on Facebook) about her on the headlines all over, I couldn’t control my curiosity. Last night was the first chance I got to do a bit of research, and I ended up reading for 2 hours about her. :\

Morning class (Econometrics) I spent entirely in my own world, which wasn’t good. However we taught our very nice tutor who speaks very poor English a new phrase ‘slip of the tongue’. He was so grateful, it’s really nice. He’s a very sincere person, I like. But he cannot teach well. I still like my Labor tutor soooo much more. I really like her. She’s my second favourite tutor ever, after Pan Pan. And no one can ever beat Pan Pan, really.

Went for Macro tutorial and understood everything (thankfully Peiling asked a question about something which I thought I understood but actually didn’t). And then we went for lunch, and that was when the bad day truly began.

I hate going into detail about bad stuff, as can be told by how I write. (I go into many tiny details about good things, but bad ones I gloss over, unless I’m venting.)

Therefore, suffice to say that it was some phone calls and messages to and from Mom, to settle that interview we need for our project. It was a bit of a crisis, judging by our tight schedule.

Calmed down enough to have lunch, and went for Econometrics when I realised I had a missed call and several messages from Mom. Called back and there were more tiny little frustrations that built up and made me upset. Followed by checking my email to see the things from Mr Director, and all was not well.

I was online during the whole lecture, corresponding. (On my phone, which was not so convenient compared to my Christie or Camilla.) I really dislike correspondence at times like this, because there are too many points of contact and it’s all so horrible. Especially when the success of our project hinges on something so crucial, yet it goes so wrong at the last minute. It was not a good feeling.

Left lecture early to go for the Masters in Management talk, and that was a little bright spark. Because I had something to look forward to! It gave me something to work towards, and made me happy. And on a normal day, I would have been excited, but today I was too weary to be excited.

After the talk I spoke to Annie who is so nice! Which reminds me, I should email her to thank her.

Had a nice dinner with Peiling, Jun Wei and Di Wei. Peiling left early for shooting, so sad, she looked really tired. Di Wei started talking Economics afterwards, which was SO INTERESTING TO LISTEN TO! I love how I have to keep thinking to keep up with how fast he is going. But I don’t like not being able to understand fully. Because when he talks, he is in his own world and he doesn’t realise it when people aren’t following. But it was enjoyable talking to him again. We have changed, but we are still the same. So interesting isn’t it? How we all grow.

Went off for AIESEC after that, not before calling Mom to tell her my enthusiasm for this Masters programme. I am really excited about it now, though I was too tired to be so this afternoon.

AIESEC was quick and efficient, and I had a lot of fun. I especially enjoy making Jason exasperated with my remarks, because he can NEVER EVER maintain a serious mood at the meetings, as long as I’m not in the mood to be serious. It’s funny how I can make jokes so easily in certain company. I really like it. I honestly even laugh at myself.

Note: Pikachu, Green+Yellow=>Jason works well with himself, Tell Yi An THAT’S WITHIN YOUR JOB SCOPE!

It was enjoyable, and I love short meetings. Waited for Jun Wei afterwards, during which I Facejacked Jason. And thennnnn, Jun Wei and I took the Circle Line home!

I love the Circle Line. This shall be my way home from now on. I love it.

And I come to my mailbox and THERE! My LSE-PKU transcipt has finally arrived! Just as I was checking the email about it during Metrics this morning, to see what was the estimated time they’ll take to get to us! How awesome. What wonderful timing.

And suddenly, looking back, so many good things happened today! There was that funny wall post on Jovin’s wall by Fahmi. There was Dr Fang’s very very very prompt reply to my email, with some light-hearted conversation. It’s so good to carry on adult conversations with ex-teachers from teenage years! And there’s also Sergii’s email, the first one in about 3 or 4 weeks, that’s how long we haven’t talked. On top of that, there’s the little bits of how things go smoothly like catching the bus so I wasn’t late, catching the train without having to run, etc…

You know, if you look out for it, there are small little things going well all the time!

And now I have a big direction to look forward to, my postgraduate degree! Just as my email to Dr Fang this morning highlighted my worries about my future, here comes an answer for me in an email sent out at 9.52am this morning, inviting me to attend a talk at 3.30pm.

I’m quite certain that when I look back in the future, everything will make sense.

(As Steve Jobs said.)

SOOOO. I’m just going to do whatever I love doing for now. Which is, BATHE, DRINK MUSHROOM SOUP AND WATCH GLEE WITH SHAELYN.

Be calm.

2011-10-16T00:41:00.001+08:00

How should I put this? Where shall I begin?

Okay, in times when I blog a lot, it generally means that there are a lot of frustrations in life, and I’m generally not in control very much (emotionally). Whether I’m happy or unhappy, the preceding statement generally holds true. I blog so that I can have a tiny element of control, so that I can feel like I’ve accomplished something by immortalizing a bit of my thoughts somewhere in cyberspace.

Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed by excitement that I have to blog, to gain some semblance of sanity amidst the mad exuberance. Sometimes I get so upset that I have to blog, to sort thoughts out and tell myself that it’s fine, I can do this, I am fine.

Lately, I’m very frustrated and I mood swing like crazy. I never even experienced this in my teenage years, why now? Why now?

These past few days, my emotional state fluctuated wildly. I am usually suffering from a headache threatening to split my brain into pieces. I consistently talk positive things, but GOD IT DOESN’T HELP.

Two hours ago, I wanted to come here and write a happy post because I was feeling generally fine. My day has been fine. I was happy. I didn’t come and write it because I didn’t want to blog too often. Therefore I didn’t, but oh, great, here I am now, because of a series of unfortunate events, once again.

I got really frustrated, really really. I feel like crap. I feel like I’m totally not in control of anything at all, and the feeling sucks.

I came here to write all these down, and I know the incoherence is jarring, but I just wanted to say, from this minute on, I want to be calm. Whatever comes, I will take it, and I will be fine, and I will be in control.

Good. I feel instantly better. Now post, or delete?

I think post, so that I can laugh at myself in future. At my stupidity for troubling about such trivial matters.

Oh, Shaelyn just grumbled again. We’re in the same boat, experienced the same series of unfortunate events. I tried to talk some sense in her but I think I ended up being rather dismissive and authoritative. I need to reflect.

And I am calm.

(insert expletive)

2011-10-14T14:47:00.001+08:00

Every single damn thing is going wrong today despite spending ample time calming myself down for two whole bloody hours after the morning mishap. Do we all get these kind of days where every single atom on this Earth is conspiring to make the life if this one person - which happens to be yours truly for today - miserable beyond doubt??

Ironies. I'm beyond exasperated. It's been quite a long time since I got this angry at the world. I mean, I'm mature enough to know that I ought to control my emotions for coincidences that are just too unfortunate. But today, today it's just too much. A series of unfortunate events, but the very root of the problem is still me, for making stupid choices in the first place.

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Okay, this is an edit: I'm back at 3.30pm approximately, much calmer after clearing up weheartit, making all the pretty pictures into sets. Although this is not a logical continuation of the earlier half of my post, I'm adding this paragraph here to show that I have calmed down, I am fine, I have minutely short periods of outbursts, but I revert back to normal really quickly. And this cannot be posted as a separate post due to my personal rule of no more than 3 blog entries per day. I'm bending the rules a little here, by making an 'edit'.

Errands.

2011-10-14T12:24:00.001+08:00

50% of the time I run an errand for the family, I will commit some kind of stupid blunder. It just happened again. And I got reprimanded by Dad. And I called Mom and sort of took it out a little on her, for forgetting to pass me the receipt in order to run Errand #2 later on. Then I told her stupid blunder for Errand #1, but she told me to ignore Dad because he probably just took his frustrations on his work out on me.

I dislike.

Why can’t we be civil and respectful to one another, and forgiving of one another’s mistakes? It applies to me as well. This family has a lot to learn about controlling our tempers, and being reasonable.

Okay I admit, my family is already very good compared to some other families, I’m sure of that. But living on a day to day basis, there are still so many pleasantries lacking.

I haven’t really complained about my family here on this public domain, but during the growing up years, there have been many complaints in the pen-and-paper diary. Things that they have made me upset about.

I am upset today.

And by the way, I make so many unforgiving mistakes, stupid mistakes. Why am I so stupid? I never think. I don’t ever think enough to prevent stupid mistakes from being made by the stupid me. How can greatness come from a person like me?

就是有点不舒服。

2011-10-14T01:21:00.001+08:00

不知道为什么，我每过一段时间就会突然变得非常懒散。这并不代表我平时非常认真或用功，只是说，有时候我就像无法控制似的，会把大块大块的时间就这样浪费掉。（今晚就是像以描述的一样，把一整个晚上给浪费了。已经没有时间了！上个星期让自己松懈下来，结果就是考了一个不怎么样的成绩。非常让人失望，尤其是因为多读一些东西就一定可以考得很好的。让人感到特别的郁闷，特别不甘心。）

我本来就已经比别人需要更多的睡眠。光从睡眠时间来讲，就已经‘浪费’掉了不少宝贵的时间。可是偏偏就没办法抓紧醒来的时间，好好完成自己应该完成的事情。不管设了多少个目标，我也从没有能够一直维持刻苦地达成目标的好习惯。每过一段时间，我就会做出一些让自己将来放不过自己的事情。

今天身体状况不太好。从下午就开始不舒服。到了傍晚就更加难受。本来以为是为了专题作业而太紧张了，所以才造成了不适。可是晚饭后，并没有感到任何的好转。之后又硬着头皮做了一些运动，结果当然没好下场。

我真的不舒服。精神上的不舒服加上了身体的不舒服，就是很不舒服就对了。奇怪的是，我又不愿意去睡觉。有点怕自己一睡就睡不醒。不是说死掉啊，只是说睡不醒，睡得头昏脑胀，醒来之后又觉得好像根本没睡到一样。讨厌死了。

今天又开始有点想念乌克兰的美好时光。不像过去那么想念，但是就有点怀念在心里痒痒的。加上知道自己的快乐日子也许已经永远地过去了，而且对未来却一点概念也没有。。。。。。不舒服。

我把面簿的主页照片换了。换成了一张在乌克兰拍的。傻傻地，就想拉着一些记忆不放。还以为把它放在面簿上，就代表它永远永远都不会离开我的日常生活。可并不是。那段日子早已过去；我现在的生活跟那时的生活有着天渊之别。回想起来，有点难以相信我曾经是那样在过日子。

写中文有点吃力。我也是时候去睡觉了。不想睡也得睡，不然明天可真的是对自己有万分的责备。不知道为什么，我觉得自己用中文的写作能力退步得太厉害了。好像是从英文直接翻译的一样。甚至有的时候脑海中出现的词汇是英文的，然后才忙着想怎么翻译。我对自己太失望了。为什么就做不到自己想做的那个人呢？

想来想去也想不通。

好了，够了。明天就不能像今晚一样，心这么不静，东摸摸这、西摸摸那。明天我必须赶紧为下周的考试做我应做的准备。不能犯上周所犯的错误。一个不满意的成绩已经是太多了。不能让它成为两个。我得用功！！

Losing the belief, but finding it back.

2011-10-12T17:58:00.001+08:00

I gave up on ‘The Circle’ last week. But I picked it up again today. I had to give it another chance, because despite finding fault with the writing, I do believe in what it advocates. I truly believe it.

I guess this book hasn’t given me the ‘wow’ moments. It disappointed me. But this paragraph struck a chord, especially given the recent happenings in life.

Celebrate the successes and victories. Acknowledge and mourn the losses and allow the energy of disappointment to become the energy of faith and transformation. And always honor the journey.

-- The Circle, Laura Day, Page 35

Good advice, I think, especially given the light of my circumstances. I will rise above it all and really manage every aspect of my life. I will.

-

2011-10-12T12:28:00.001+08:00

Yvvy needs to fight now.

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Life.

2011-10-10T19:13:00.000+08:00

Life likes to play tricks on us, throw us little unexpected surprises... When I started the post with this sentence, I was on my way to campus this morning and was feeling rather exasperated. I felt like I just had a nasty trick played on me.

Little did I know, my day had more surprises in store for me than I had expected. Well of course, that's why I said 'unexpected' surprises.

Just as how 'Everything is Illuminated' threw me a surprise, by being set in Ukraine, thus providing the impetus for me to finish reading it this time, I've noticed some other little surprises, pleasant and unpleasant.

This morning, seeing a particular photo tagged on my profile caused a wave of nostalgia that was so strong, it was almost unbearably unpleasant. I was tossing in bed last night, unable to sleep from the thoughts that confuse me. For a while, I was so certain that I was bound to be a drifter for life, but last night I was suddenly sure that I won't be drifting anywhere anymore. Part of it is from my duty as a member of this family, part of it is because I suddenly feel contented to be right where I am. Well, not really contented, but not to the extreme of being resigned. Just somewhere in between. Then, I see this photo this morning and I am filled with disbelief at the places that I've actually been to. It's really quite overwhelming, come to think of it. But in a way, it's a pleasant reminder of what has been. It's nice, but a little heart-wrenching.

This afternoon, I received a postcard from Ukraine. I wasn't overcome by euphoria or anything of that sort. It was just a quiet-little-smile kind of moment. Nothing extravagant or exaggerated. I just read it twice, smiled, read it again. And then I took a photo of it and kept it away in my drawer. I don't think I'm a dweller on the past anymore. Not so much. It's nice to come back to photos and videos once in a while and find myself smiling at them, unaware. But I no longer get afficted by extreme emotions, and by my choice of word, I suppose it's obvious that I think it's for the better.

I'm not a writer today. I dont know what I'm saying, much.

Just another little surprise today that didn't quite make my day: it always rains when I wear new shoes for the first time. Honestly, I got to start working on what I'm signalling to the universe.

---

Edit.

After I hit pubblish, I realised that I have more to say. Just a couple of things.

1. I really like my Labor Economics tutor. She really gains my respect. And it's not from her intellect, but more of the way she conducts the lessson with confidence. She's one of the few tutors who really sets the tone straight right from the first lesson, lets us know that she's no-nonsense. And then now we see that she's relaxing a bit more, cutting us some slack. But really, all the while she was never pressurizing, just efficient. I really like that.

2. I forgot what else I had wanted to say. If I happen to remember, I'll come back for another edit. As I mentioned, today I'm not a writer.

---

Edit. Again.

I remember. I just wanted to commemorate the fact that it is the 10th of October today, and thus it is a special day. But I didn't even realise that today is a special date day, because I think I've grown out of the excitement for such things. What a pity, really, I keep growing up. At least I'm not very sad about that.

Maybe I'll blog something special on 11.11.11.

I'm a little amused by how I come back to update this at 2-minute intervals. But no, this is final, I'm not coming back anymore.

Everything is Illuminated

2011-10-06T13:11:00.003+08:00

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It made me both happy and sad at the same time. Thoroughly enjoyable read. The character Alex speaks in a way that reminded me of my own time in Ukraine. It talks about love and sadness in an extraordinary manner.

View all my reviews

The wonderful Sunday.

2011-10-04T00:13:00.002+08:00

OH, MY, GOODNESS, just noticed a draft from I don't know how long ago!! It was some time when I was still in Montreal. And it is incomplete. But it shall be posted, so that it leaves a mark here forever.

This post is about the wonderful Sunday - 2 Sundays past - that I had every intention to blog about for a long time already, but haven't gotten around to doing so. The reason why I'm blogging now is because I just completed the final test for ECON 405 and am feeling much liberated. Furthermore, I got back my term paper - the 40% paper which I completed in approximately 2 days, to an astoundingly terribly low standard - and (yet) received a stunning 33%. I am beyond happy. I am so thankful that the professor seems to be lenient in his marking. Correction, he is lenient in his marking because I've been doing consistently well in this module despite the lack of effort (which induces perpetual worrying which isn't very comfortable at all). But I'm not complaining for his leniency. I am so grateful for it. Ah, I've done wrong but please don't punish me. :\ (Feeling guilty.)

In short, I'm in a good mood, and I'd like to blog while the mood lasts, about the Sunday of adventures. In fact, I think I shall blog about the Sunday just past too, after I'm done with the previous Sunday. There aren't many Sundays left from now on... I want to remember every one of them clearly and fondly.

The star Sunday was the 27th of March. That day, I went on a day trip with a slightly troubled heart because I had spent the preceding Friday and Saturday completing a silly 15% one-page assignment for ECON 344, while the 40% four-page term paper was due the coming Tuesday (dreaded 29th March). I was sorely disappointed by my absolute lack of discipline and focus, for I had spent most of those two days in front of the computer, surfing instead of working. (Which explains why I took 2 days to write one page of words.) In fact, the ratio of work hours to play hours that I've been keeping for the past month has been something like a 1 is to 9, with the 1 unit of work hours almost entirely made up of go-to-class hours. What I'm rambling on and on about is that I haven't been a good student, no not at all.

Nevertheless, I went ahead with the day trip because it has been the long-awaited sugar shack trip. Have been lamenting to myself about how this SEP hasn't been much eventful at all, and going for sugar shack seemed - strangely - to ease my regrets a little. Have been wanting to go for a sugar shack meal ever since first hearing about it long long ago in the month of January, but chances have come and gone. At the beginning of spring, it seemed the perfect time to realise this dream and go for it, despite the tour being slightly pricey. I told myself to enjoy the day to the fullest and finish the term paper on Monday. (In fact I skipped class on Monday so as to finish it.)

Didn't have my camera (Cassie) that morning because I lent her to HR for his Chicago trip. Wasn't particularly bothered by that, given the disappointing quality of pictures that Cassie produced over the Toronto weekend. Without a camera, I thought I'd be able to enjoy more. (Less the pressure of photo-taking, you see.) There's always two sides to the same thing: Stressed over work but ready to enjoy the day; no camera to capture pretty images but with freedom to enjoy and capture more in my memory.

There was a lot of waiting around that morning due to complications by the tour agency. The minibus wasn't extremely comfortable to sit in either. Mel, JY and I took the last row with Mel in the middle. I was by the left window and I saw plenty of photo-worthy moments, thus snapped a couple with JY's camera. Don't think any turned out particularly spectacular but nature itself was beautiful enough such that the pictures were more than decent after all. Upon arrival at the sugar shack (I forget the name, some Gregoire or something, I'll find out), it was so windy that we had a tough time standing around waiting to be let in. Mel was literally running around to keep warm. The wind can totally rival what we experienced in Toronto. In fact I think I was colder than I had been in Toronto, particularly because I was in leather boots instead of my best friends - the furry boots.

Some shuffling indoors to soak up some heat (because we realised that we could go in through those red doors) and then outdoors again (when we realised we had a long while more to wait) led us to the animal area where I had fun talking to the llama. I ignored all the sheep because they weren't very cute. The llama was lovely though!! ♥ I swear it was smiling, and smiling at me. (: We then went on the sleigh ride. The most exciting part of the entire ride around the maple forest was when the horse pooped. Okay, sorry for sounding immature, but how often do you see a giant horse lift its tail and propel fresh poop out of its behind barely 2 metres away from you? It was so cold that the poop was steaming. Sorry for going into such detail but I must say that the pooping horse was a sight I will always remember. We all laughed, too. Nice breaking of the silence. Another highlight of the ride was when I noticed an interesting character seated next to JY peering gleefully at JY's butt while the victim himself was standing up with one foot on the ground and the other on the seat, snapping photographs. Oh, poor JY was blissfully unaware of the stranger staring at his behind. Rachel and I had a very good laugh about it subsequently. Too bad I was seated too far away and couldn't warn him to just 'sit down already and stop sticking your butt in that strange guy's face!' (Of course, it was really the pervy guy's problem; JY was minding his own business, unleashing his artistic photographer self while trying not to block pervy guy's view.)

We returned to the dining area after the ride and patiently waited to be let into the dining hall while we thawed ourselves out in front of the fire. JY opened 2 heat packs, but those didn't have much of an effect till several hours later. Now we know, we should open them way in advance. Toronto should have taught us that already! (That Saturday night after Niagara falls, walking around hunting for food at 1.45AM but everything was due to close at 2AM...) The maple taffy room started the preparation for the day. We saw a man shovelling snow onto the tray, painstakingly packing the snow all nice and tightly. Never knew it was that much work! We did wonder where the snow came from, now that most of the snow had already melted. I speculate that he must have a giant freezer full of snow collected over the season. Rachel and JY both think that he was shovelling straight from outdoors. I felt a little disturbed by that notion because all the snow outdoors are old snow. Rachel also pondered about where he keeps the shovel. Surely not lying around on the ground, right? We'll be eating the snow afterwards!

Finally went into the hall for the food. Long tables full of people and waitresses dressed with aprons made of the same cloth as the tablecloths. Very cute, actually, checked red and white. Started off with pea soup and bread (this old lady at our table told us to queue for the soup first, in a way that was slightly chastening, which I didn't like, but at least she told us, otherwise we'd be stupidly sitting there) and JY suggested adding maple syrup to the soup. Fantastic idea. In fact, upon hindsight, we realised that all the food should have been spammed with maple syrup. We didn't have enough maple syrup that day!! ): Okay, no more complaints, I shall continue recounting. Soon after, all the rest of the food came. There were sausages, potatoes (fries, actually), lard (yes, really, fried lard), egg + ham, beans. There might have been more food but I can't remember. There was coleslaw, pickles and beetroot on the table already, too, but we didn't touch any except a but of coleslaw. Sitting there with strangers and sharing food together is quite a nice and cosy notion, but was actually rather stressful for me. I was next to this very nice old man with his wife, and it was a lot of pressure to make sure that people on both sides of me (our bunch/the old couple) had sufficient food. It didn't help that Mel - who was opposite me and was thus the other connecting point between strangers and us - has a tendency to satisfy her own tummy first. (No offense intended, just a truthful observation.) In any case, most of my mealtime consisted of passing food, milk, maple syrup either to my left or to my right. I was constantly worrying if people had enough food, or if they needed anything out of their reach but were embarrassed to ask.

There was coffee/tea + dessert at the end of the meal, which was very nice. I don't drink coffee/tea so I can't comment on how they tasted with maple syrup. Dessert was good. Sugar tarts, cinnamon donuts and some kind of soufflé, if I'm not wrong, which was fantastic with maple syrup. All in all, the most inventive maple syrupping must have been maple syrup in fresh milk. I didn't do it, but JY did, and I tasted it. Interesting, but I prefer my milk pure and un-syrupped.

All fed and watered, we went out and walked over to the 'ballroom', which was an open area with benches on either side. Music was playing and children were having a lot of fun dancing around. I really liked looking at them having fun. I imagined that if the little ones in the family were there, they'd be having tons of fun too. And then I remember, the little ones aren't that little anymore. Ah, I'm old. ): Also encountered adorable twin boys with their grandmother in the ladies, in between the meal and the dessert. It was nice, smiling at the boy who was impatient for the toilet while his twin was taking a while inside the cubicle.

Anyway, watching children "dance" never tires me out but I think it tires my friends out. They soon got bored and so we wandered to the taffy room. Rolling the taffy was the best part, and the next best part was putting a freshly rolled stick of taffy into the mouth. I loved feeling the little crystals of snow melt. The sweetness of the maple syrup diluted by snow water is best. Subsequently, the whole stick just became a mass of gooey sticky sweetness, which wasn't very exciting anymore. Every one of us had quite a few sticks of taffy. I had three. JY had five. I dunno how many others had. Probably somewhere in between. I preferred this to the taffy that I bought with Mel and Hayley on our Quebec City trip. That one used maple syrup that was darker. I prefer the lighter one. In between jostling among people to roll sticks of maple taffy, Rachel and I had some fun deciphering the French information on the wall about the production of maple syrup. We eventually gave up and read the English version at the corner of the room. There were also a few photographs taken amidst all the drippy stickiness. We finally decided to leave for the outdoors.

After becoming human popsicles that morning, I think we were very brave to head out into the open again. Being warm and fed might have contributed to our decision to go out, but honestly speaking we were just too bored. There's nothing much to do in that crowded little shack! (Okay the shack is not a shack and it is not little, but just figuratively.) Heading outdoors marked the first real adventure of the day, and ranks way up there in terms of my favourite parts of the day.

We stopped briefly by the animal park but there was a crowd, so we didn't linger. I spent some more time petting the horses at the sleighs and JY took many pictures of the horses. Then we hurried over to where the rest were, climbing up a little bit into the maple forest. Rachel must have been sugar high, for she started becoming very uncharacteristically giggly, telling a very crazy tale about being kings of the maple forest along with Takuya. She would banish the people she dislikes into the animal area after turning them into llamas. And so on. Soon, everyone had fallen branches in hands, pretending to be wielding magic wands. Strangely, I was just standing there laughing instead of joining in the madness. I suspect I usually would have joined right in.

We soon started climbing up the hill of the maple forest and when we started, we couldn't stop. Actually, Mel couldn't stop, and I got very excited very quickly. Natalie wasn't enthusiastic at all. In fact, I think she was rather petrified by the idea of climbing up the slippery snowy slopes. I guess her boots gave quite little traction. In the end, JY guided her up and down. The rest of us moved at our own pace while trying but failing to keep all of us together. Cutting the mild unpleasantness due to a dispersed group, I must say that we had a lot of fun going up the slopes.

Mel and I soon lost the rest, but decided to keep going. We weren't rushing or anything... We took a leisurely pace and contemplated using a fallen tree as our magic wand to battle against Rachel. We stopped by a couple of rocks and stood on them. We found the easiest path upwards; both of us had slippery shoes on that day. Soon we came to a fallen tree resting on a standing tree at an angle. Mel jumped onto the tree truck on her stomach and hugged it, trying to scoot upwards. Taku was with us at the point in time and he challenged her to go at least up to the middle of the trunk. I spurred her on too, because it seemed an exciting prospect. Come to think of it, it must have been scary, for the tree slopes away from the slope of the hill, meaning the higher you went up the trunk, the further the distance from the ground. (As in, further than in the case of a horizontal ground.)

-Remember to link to the post "Simple pleasures" dated 31 March when posting this!!-

Unfortunately, an abrupt end. It was such a nice read, though, half a year later, remembering every scene that I described, smiling at little details that I've already forgotten. I can very well continue this story with plenty of details, still, despite the lack of photographs. But I can't, I have a midterm to prepare for. ): Maybe next time. And not to forget, I have so many drafts about my Ukraine times too, waiting to be finished and posted...

Storytelling

2011-10-04T00:11:00.001+08:00

Today was the very first LC meeting. Despite having a midterm tomorrow, and having many other things to worry about, I attended.

No, this makes it sound as though I did it out of obligation, when in truth, I did it just because I wanted to.

No matter what other people say about AIESEC or feel about AIESEC, I'm making my AIESEC experience my very own, and I know that this is the way it should be.

I'm not going to begin justifying how great AIESEC is, because it isn't. Neither am I going to defend this organisation for what it is, which is in fact pretty awesome indeed and needs no defense. I'm gonna write about what AIESEC is to me. Because I'm not writing for anyone else. I write for me, and I already know how problematic AIESEC is, yet how amazing it can be.

To me, AIESEC is hope. In many ways, I'm beginning to see how my AIESEC experience is describing the organisation's mission: Peace and fulfilment of humankind's potential. When I go for AIESEC, I can be prepared to really learn something, really get something out of it. It doesn't matter who is conducting the session, or whether it is 'up to standard'. Who sets the standard, after all? We are all there to learn from each other. And it doesn't matter if what we learn is big or small. My stay in Ukraine has taught me, there's something to be learnt from EVERY SINGLE PERSON we meet. It's only whether we're realising/noticing it, or not.

Today, if nothing else, I learnt that speaking in public could really be a strength of mine. Especially when I'm given the liberty to speak in just the fashion I like. Cheerful, with just a bit of humour, and most importantly, comprehensive. Today, I did it. I finally got to be on the receiving end of an 'Hey AIESEC!'. And it was great. I was nervous as ever, but I'd like to think of it as excitement. I can take that nervous energy and transform it into something that works for me, instead of against me. It's like storytelling. I've loved to tell stories ever since my head could hardly be seen over a kitchen stool. I think, it's something I was 'born to do'. (Quote Everything is Illuminated.)

And if nothing else, today I heard a really interesting story, as told by Julian during his sharing session. I missed the first bit, so I'm going to make up the details.

There was an old man who was about to pass on. He called his three sons to his bed and said to them, the eldest of you shall get 1/2 of my possessions. The second shall get 1/3, and the youngest shall get 1/9. With that, he passed away.

The sons were happy with his will, until they realised that their father's life possessions were exactly 17 camels. The sons were at a loss. How were they to divide the 17 camels according to their father's will?

They approached a wise old man for advice. The old man pondered for a while, and said to them. why don't you borrow my camel for a while, and then you will have 18 camels. The sons did so, and suddenly, everything became clear. The eldest son had 9 camels. The middle son had 6. The youngest had 2. And then, the three sons had 1 camel left over, which they returned to the wise old man.

Julian had his own 'moral of the story', which was very interesting. But I believe that with this story, we can each have our own takeaways. In any case, I think it's one superb story.

---

Today, happy things are beginning to happen once more. My life is looking up again. And the point of extreme happiness must have been when I saw the FB message from Prof DQ. Hearing from the prof always, ALWAYS makes my day.

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Ephemeralness.

2011-10-02T21:09:00.001+08:00

I’ve been feeling way too melancholy lately.

I was fooled into thinking that I have recovered. But now I realise, that was just an illusion. Or perhaps, it was not an illusion, but merely reality that lasted for a lifespan of the duration of a flutter of an eyelid.

---

I’ve been visiting Facebook too frequently, staying for no longer than 10 minutes each visit, clicking a few links here, checking a few things out there.

Noticing who is on chat.

Realising how quickly everyone’s lives have moved on, everyone except I. Perhaps I’ve been moving on too quickly for those past few months that now, this stagnancy for the past 2 months feels poignantly disturbing.

I’d very much like to halt their progresses with a tap on their shoulders, saying, hey, hold on for a second, where exactly in the world are you right now? How much has happened since the last time we spoke? Do you even remember me at all, still? Or have we made new friends and decided that the old ones were nothing but passing friendships that won’t have any bearing to our – no not ours, but I meant, just the second person of I, me, myself – your life?

And these people, I’m talking about new friends. New friends whom I thought I’d be able to keep in touch with for some fraction of my coming life, past these 2 months, at least. But I guess not, because now I’m left so confused by the speed at which people have moved on, moved past, moved.

On Facebook chat, a few tens of minutes ago, I saw Claudio (whom I didn’t talk to, because what more meaningful conversation can be held, after all? It’s just like those other friendships that have so quickly faded away.), who reminded me suddenly of Ricardo, and therefore I decided to check out what Ricardo was doing lately, only to realise that Ricardo no longer exists on Facebook. No longer exists. Gone. Just like that, gone. I tried several variations of his name, but it was fruitless.

I went to that photograph which held significance; the location along Khreshatyk where Ricardo, then a stranger, stopped by to say hello in his typical Milanese manner. To my absolute surprise, the tag was gone, leaving only the letters of his name. His comments have disappeared, leaving only mine, like an incoherent monologue. And the best part: my comments have 1 ‘like’ each, and when I rolled my cursor over those ‘like’s, out popped the little tag which says ‘No one likes this item’.

It’s like a chilly wind blowing through my insides, at the realisation of how ephemeral our online existences are. It’s as though Ricardo and I have never met on that sunny early afternoon in Kyiv, when my tears were just drying on my cheeks. It was as though he never stopped to talk for those 15 minutes, brightening my mood, giving me strength to get through the rest of that day. As though we never carried out that conversation in English – with passersby speaking only Russian or Ukranian – the two of us foreigners conversing in a common tongue, in a foreign land. As though we never ‘like’-d each other's statuses, comments, photos – which was really more one sided, where he ‘like’-d mine, and added my Ukrainian friends, and made friends with them too. As though this acquaintanceship had never existed on this Earth.

It makes me feel a sense of loss. Although we weren’t really friends, and have exchanged merely those few words, I feel a sense of loss. I know life is like that, but whenever people disappear from Facebook, I get this feeling like I’ll never ever know where they disappear to. All I have left of them would be memories which only get more and more blur as time passes.

I guess the only way to overcome this melancholy is to keep creating more and more memories, to wash over the old ones like ocean waves over the sand on the beach, each time carrying a new, smooth layer of sand in with the tide, and sucking back the old and forgotten sand which used to be in that place, on that beach…

---

I have to study. But I’ve lost my excitement in studying. It bores me. Reading what I’ve read once before bores me. I need new things. Challenging things. Intelligent thoughts, ideas, questions. Questions which I can’t generate on my own. I want to be questioned, so that I know where to begin thinking, begin solving, begin reading once more.

If this keeps up…

2011-10-01T14:39:00.001+08:00

I just keep ASSUMING that when I wake up, I will be okay. But for the past two mornings, I woke up but I have not been NOT OKAY.

I want to go and run, because I ASSUME that if I run, I will be okay. But it is noon, and I CANNOT RUN BECAUSE THE SUN IS SCORCHING.

My first thought when I opened my eyes was, I should have been at the airport. And then it was immense sadness rippling through me in an almost physical wave, starting from the core of my gut and reverberating all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.

I turned around and refused to let the wakefulness overtake the comforting hum of sleep.

I’m such a coward, really. Just as how I pretended to continue sleeping when Shaelyn came home on Thursday afternoon. I pretended till I couldn’t pretend anymore.

---

The first thing I reached for was Camilla, when a moment of mechanical reflex pulled me into an upright position.

It’s so strange, sometimes, you know, when your body takes you through motions that you had no intention of making.

It’s been a long time since I glued my eyes to the laptop screen the moment I had them open. But that’s what I did this morning.

---

Facebook rarely makes me feel any better. But last night, the last consoling thoughts before I fell asleep (and I did have quite some trouble falling asleep last night, because I was shrouded by a cloud of fear and sadness) was that if ever I lived alone, as in, truly alone, in an empty shell of an apartment, I think Facebook would be my only link to the familiarity of social life.

One more thought in the bleariness of early morning, when some thing or other roused me for a couple of seconds: I’m so glad I didn’t have any nightmares. I was almost certain that I would have had one, because of the unpleasant thoughts right before I fell asleep. But no, I actually had a pleasant dream which I promptly forgot when thoughts of ‘I should have been at the airport’ took over, when consciousness really took the reign.

---

I spent much of this morning on one of the books I borrowed from the library.

“Everything is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer.

If I search through the archives of my blog, I’d probably find mention of this name. I borrowed this book once upon a time, but never got past the front bit.

But I’ve become a better reader since then. Better at comprehension of the peculiar ways that novelists like to express themselves. And I’m finding this book an immense pleasure to read. It’s something that I’m holding on to very dearly for the past two days, ever since the Mega Trigger To My Foul Mood occurred.

I don’t want to turn this into a book review. And I expect I’d be able to find many book reviews on this novel out there. But I’m honestly not a person for book reviews. Because when it comes to Literature, not being a Literature student of any kind, I have the philosophy that I read whatever pleases me, and I interpret it however I want to interpret it.

Come on, we’re not taking exams here. More well-read people who are well-versed in the complicated language of Literature may be able to come to a nice general agreement about the quality of a piece of writing, or what exactly it tries to convey (although yes, I do understand, despite my general ignorance, that such people also have PLENTY of disagreements) but I’m not trying to be one of them. I read as I please, and this book, it really pleases me.

A plus point is that this book has a main character who is Ukrainian, and is set in Ukraine. I never noticed it before, because when something has no significance to the self, it often glides off one’s memory like water off glass.

--- Summoned by a telephone call to leave the house right away to run an errand. Hopefully when I return, I may carry on this train of thought seamlessly. ---

Two hours later, I’m back. I was wrong. I have no idea how to continue that train of thought, but I shall try.

Right, as I was saying, when I last read this book and found it ridiculously hard to understand, I haven’t been to Ukraine. The place held no special meaning to me. But now, having acquired better reading skills, I perfectly understand the author. Furthermore, having been to Ukraine, the land where the story is set, the story holds a lot more special meaning to me.

I particularly enjoy the scene, where the Ukrainian character’s grandfather says ‘Welcome to Ukraine’, upon which the three main characters begin to laugh hysterically at the absurdity of the situation. It really reminds me of our time in Ukraine, when people such as Gleb would holler at us, ‘Welcome to Ukraine!’ at every absurd situation.

---

This early afternoon, I have yet to do anything that I am supposed to do. But it’s time to pick myself back up again. I know it is.

Contrary to my belief (which I told my good friends yesterday), my dad told my mom about the Incident. So Mom knows, and she doesn’t think it’s very much. Okay, maybe I really overreacted. But it was uncontrollable. I didn’t mean to feel so sad. I just did. Sometimes, it’s difficult to fathom when our emotions will overwhelm us.

---

I think I ought to go back to the reading that Pan Pan suggested. Perhaps it will be able to ground me, and give me more purpose.

When I have found meaning in the writing, I will share it here. Till then, I’m still searching for The Secret.

I leave with a quote from a book which hauntingly reminds me of The Secret.

“The Circle” by Laura Day. Page 30, paragraph 2, it says:

Sadly, most people never truly break their habits, no matter how hard they try. Year after year, they slip into the same patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Sometimes, one pattern is behind what they see as several unrelated incidents, and they never realize that they have been repeating the same script since childhood.

This is rather familiar, it feels. It’s like a dream that was forgotten upon waking, but the next night, when I lie on my pillow once more, the shadow of that dream remains, lingering.

This quoted paragraph reminds me of moments as I read what I used to write, in my growing up days, and I would feel troubled that after so many years, I’m still complaining about the same things, still living in the same way, still troubled by the same matters.

It is time I break out of this cycle and transcend to something greater.

These tears.

2011-10-01T00:45:00.001+08:00

I hate these tears. They are a sign of weakness. I am not weak. Perhaps I am just a bit stupid.

I’m not a very capable person at all. I need people to look after me. To look out for me. To make sure I’m fine.

I may have travelled many places all by myself. I may have lived independently. But I am not capable. I am a sloppy, happy-go-lucky person who messes up at the most critical moments.

I screwed up today, and reduced myself to tears in front of my friends. My closest friends, but still. Afterwards, I told them I don’t think they’ve ever seen me cry. But they said otherwise. Am I really someone who cries so much? Why don’t I remember? I don’t remember ever crying in front of these friends. But maybe I have just chosen to forget. I have a very selective memory.

Today I didn’t make it to the airport to send Lawrence off. And tiny little reminders are all over the place, making me feel so terrible about my lack of planning.

Basically, my own stupidity and lack of foresight and lack of planning and general delusional belief that things will always work out fine led to the ultimately distressing 15 minutes where there was realisation that I was unable to get out of Aloha Changi in time to make it to the airport.

It was a devastating few moments and I just broke down.

I am not embarrassed. It is just me. I am weak in my own ways. But I felt so weak and useless.

I don’t know what upsets me, but a lot of things are not going well internally. I’ve been reading things to cheer up but it doesn’t help. When I’m with my friends, they make me feel so much better. But there is no complete healing because that will only come from within. And right now I don’t have the power to heal myself.

When I came home, the parents didn’t go easy on me. They bombarded me with questions of ‘why didn’t you do this?’ ‘why didn’t you think of that?’ ‘haven’t I already reminded you?’

What has happened has happened. I know they want me to learn from my mistakes. But flooding me with things that will deepen my guilt won’t make me learn. I just feel so tired. I feel so tired that I want to curl into a ball and fall asleep forever.

These days have not been kind to me. I need time to stop so that I can recover. So that I can heal. I want the world to leave me alone.

(At this point I feel like a whiny teenager, which I shouldn’t be. But I can’t help it. I am so tired. So, so tired.)

Why can’t things start going right again? I know I should take action to make things right again. But I don’t know how. I can’t. I can’t do it. I need to curl up into myself and disappear from this space.

Low.

2011-09-30T18:15:00.001+08:00

I've hit a low point again. Why, why so often? I don't think I can have a sustained kind of happiness unless I am out there in the 'wilderness' roughing it out.

Just yesterday morning, I was all positivity! But today, I haven't managed to pick myself up again yet. I don't have the luxury to keep this moping around up, though. I have two important midterms in a few days' time.

But it makes me happy watching how the live wallpaper if my phone looks a little different everyday. It's really nice.

It's small things that bring me a little bit of joy. Joy which somehow feels a little melancholy, really...

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Kind of broken.

2011-09-29T14:01:00.001+08:00

Should I recount or should I enumerate?

I think I’ll recount.

I have a limited vocabulary about the very human action of crying, so I don’t know how to describe my current state.

How do you call that state a person is in, after crying hard for a long time, finally having stopped crying, but still, every once in a while, there comes a gripping moment of several shuddering deep intakes or breaths? Well, that’s me for you, right this moment, typing here with still shaking fingers, despite having swallowed three whole chocolates in the last 2 minutes.

And with shaking fingers, I just unwrapped another chocolate.

I think, a while ago, I cried till I almost went into a seizure. I’ve never ever felt so broken in my life. I cried harder than I did over spring break in Montreal, although that time was the record-breaking duration of crying.

I think, the tougher I become, the more unfeeling I have been. And the more insensitive. And the more oblivious.

And I don’t cry so much now, obviously, being a grown adult, as I had used to when I was younger. Perhaps that’s the reason why every time I cry, it’s like an uncontrollable tide.

It all started with tears welling up in my eyes, and me not blinking to stop them. And then the tingling feeling up my nose, and the choking at the back of my throat. Then came the first sob, and another, and another and another coming in quicker and quicker succession.

And very soon I was on the floor, in the corner, rocking myself back and forth, hugging my knees, trying to be quiet but failing. This is the interesting part: I’ve realised that for the usual kind of crying, the volume can very much be controlled. But when hit by extreme sadness, nothing becomes controllable anymore. It’s like hysteria.

---

I just went and had lunch, because it was lunchtime. I was starving before, but then I had obviously already lost my appetite after.

Still, I forced down the plate of pasta, with Italian seasoning, which only makes me feel even sadder. It’s strange how the brain connects extremely unrelated sources of sadness and coagulates everything into one gooey mass (mess, pun intended) of tears and mucus.

Dad tried to talk sense into me over lunch, words which I was hearing but not listening to. Nothing makes sense anymore. The crying resumed with a fervour, and I don’t even know why I’m crying anymore.

This is all so immature. For the past hour and a half, all I’ve been doing was talking in my head. Talking sense, or at least, trying desperately to. But then those irrational bits and pieces of emotions just get mixed into the rational side of me, and crying, well, it drains me.

I feel so broken now. I feel so empty. I feel so tired of it all. I don’t know what my next step is, because I know that making up my mind on something in this state of vulnerability will only lead to regret later on.

And I’m guilty. Very guilty, in fact. I finally understand why they say curiosity kills the cat. I was always an advocate for curiosity. I think it drives innovation and creativity and all things good, and promotes and celebrates the truth, too. Curiosity, to me, was good. But no, today I learnt that curiosity is just the general term which encompasses the anathema of nosiness.

I was in such a good mood this morning. All the way home, I was accumulating my positivity count. I went to the library and I was happy to come home and blog all about how I love books. I also wanted to blog about my random thoughts over the past two days. But then, curiosity killed the cat, yes indeed, and now I am dead on the inside.

I know I’ll recover, and I hope it’ll be soon. But for now, I just want to disappear, to cease to exist, to stop thinking, to become unnoticeable, to dissolve into the air.

I’m broken, and I’m empty inside, and I’ll turn to my paper and pen diary now for things which must be left unsaid over here.

Wretched retching.

2011-09-26T13:28:00.001+08:00

The morning dawned
Bright and early;
Had a four and a half hour
But was too nervous to sleep in;
Downed a fruit juice and then Brand's
Thought I'd be ready to handle the morning.

Left the house before the sky lost the ebony
Ran a little to catch up with time;
All was well on the train
Read up a little and fought the sleep;
While waiting for 96 I took out my breakfast
I wasn't hungry but I knew I should eat;
A couple of bites and I've had enough;
The bread was too dry and my appetite didn't help.

Boarded the bus
Tried to doze;
Wasn't long before the nausea hit;
Here comes the highlight:
Adjusted my position
Didn't help;
Took a sip of water
Wrong move;
The bile rose up
What should I do?

Hang in there
I repeated that to me;
The minutes ticking away
If I let anything happen to me I'd be late for my exam;
The churning;
All thoughts were pushed from my mind.

Flew off the bus
I couldn't stay till my stop;
Knew I was gonna hurl;
And hurl I did.

I think I alarmed someone;
Or maybe two
But I wiped myself off and away I ran;
My exam was in 5 minutes.

Jumbled up thoughts:
Should I skip it?
I left a mess at the bus stop!!
Did I eat something wrong?
Maybe the UHC should be my destination instead...
My puke is all over the bus stop!
I think I smell like vomit.
I have to pee!!!!!
My midterm my midterm my midterm ARGHHH.

And I ran. And I thought. And I ran. And I made it. And I went to the toilet. And I sat down at my exam table #54. And I shaded my number on my bubble form. And I realised I shaded it wrong. And so I did it again. And I realised everyone had already started but I didn't hear the instructions to start. And I cursed to myself. And I had a realisation: if I can do this, I'm like Superwoman. And I knew I was tough. And I was calm. And I started writing.

And all the while, I didn't even know what hit me. Like what really happened?

5 hours later, after my exam, after my back-to-back lessons, amidst strong guilt at dirtying the bus stop, I was ready to go clean up after myself when I saw that oh, some kind soul had already done so. And still, I am calm. It's like nothing surprises me anymore. And oh, the stark contrast and relief right after throwing up made me feel really well again this morning, really well.

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I should remember.

2011-09-24T20:09:00.001+08:00

Serezha used to say, negative people attracted negative things. Positive people, on the other hand, would have everything go their way because that’s the law of attraction. If you just believe, you can achieve everything, you know? Yes, I know.

“Hello, Sergey?”
“Serezha, privet.”
“-sigh- Serezha, privet.”
“Yvi, privet.)))))))”

That’s why, he said, he liked Ada, because she always smiled. And me, too, I always smiled. He likes people like that, because of the positive energy that we generate. It’s good to be around positive people. Nothing gets us down.

Have I lost that? Oh yes. Did I realise I was losing that? No, not at all. Have I lost that completely? No, it cannot be; I don’t believe it. And if I don’t believe it, then it must not be true.

---

I remember when I was at the peak of my positivity, near the end of my first week in Beijing. That’s just one and a half months ago. I remember, I never felt better, ever. And that’s not a feeling that is easy to forget, although it does seem a little fuzzy when I try to recall how I got there.

Memories, I remember. Memories of Ukraine, the nostalgia, the yearning. It kept me wanting. It gave me the drive to live through another day, to work something out so that I can make dreams become reality again.

Promises, I remember. The promise of meeting again, it gave me strength, it gave me hope. It made me happy, it made me feel so fortunate.

Friends, I remember. I remember being surrounded by positive people. Positive energy really emanated from them, and it’s hard not to get affected. And when I get affected, I think I’m illuminated. I’m like a mirror that reflects the positivity many times more than its original, like how Thomas Edison ‘created’ light for his mother’s surgery. I’m like a glow-in-the-dark star, that after sapping up all the positivity, can glow for a long time afterwards. I think, I’m like a jewel that will sparkle and dazzle when the positivity around me shines.

But when there isn’t any positivity around, I’m dull. I’m nothing. I’m not a source of light, you see. If you strike a match and light me up, I gleam. But then, I fizzle and die. I don’t light myself up.

I need to change that, and fast. It took nothing but one sentence from Serezha, four days ago, to begin the slow transformation that led me to today.

---

20th September, I survived the MNO3303 presentation. I got home, dead tired, decided not to do any work that night. 9.42pm, I wrote Serezha an email which ended with an outburst of ‘Sergeyyyy I hate life in Singapore!!’

He never replies promptly, what with internet at work etc.

BUT…

20th September, 10.57pm Singapore time, which is 5.57pm Ukraine, he wrote back, just one line, ‘C'mon, man. Don't think that life in Sin is bad. it is not truth. You should be positive minded))’

And somehow, that was enough. There was a moment of frustration, and then realisation, and then guilt, and then self-admonishment, and then ‘omg I don’t wanna think about this anymore’.

With that, I proceeded to sleep for the next two days. Honest. Tuesday night I slept 12 hours. That ended with the upset blog post on Wednesday morning. Wednesday evening I fell asleep for another 2 hours. Wednesday night I went to bed at 10pm, and slept another 12 hours. Thursday, Thursday I woke up.

Thursday night, I ran.

Friday I stayed up till 2am. I finished what I had planned to do, well, sort of.

Saturday, today, I woke up at 7.30am. Went for AIESEC BST training. Left early (before 6pm) to come home, and put my ‘earned’ couple of hours to good use. I think… I think I’m recovering. I think I can almost find myself again.

I mustn’t be too happy too soon. I know I came to myself too late. Two midterms next week, neither of which I have started preparing for, and one of which is a killer paper, and everyone else is more hardworking than I am, and know more than I do, and all those other negativity is going to start flowing out of me like a river.

But no, I can do it, just because I believe that I can. And therefore, I will.

---

Thank you, Serezha. Even though we hardly talk now, and lead completely separate lives of our own, I’m thankful for our paths ever crossing. I’m thankful to have been influenced by someone as positive as you are. I’m glad to have meant something to you, and pushed you through a difficult time of your life.

Just one of the many people who have made a difference in my life. If ever we meet again, 那就是天意吧。

Oversleeping.

2011-09-21T11:38:00.001+08:00

Uni students average less than 5 hours of sleep a night, as far as I know.

I’ve been sleeping ~7, and then last night, just because this morning I haven’t anything to do, I just let myself clock a 12-hour sleep time.

I very much dislike resigning myself to my uncontrollable sleep habits. I read up on how to sleep less, but only manage to find things that encourage people to sleep more.

I don’t know any other person who has as poor discipline as I do with regards to sleep. I’m utterly ashamed of myself. What a bad way to start a morning, which is actually noon, especially having wasted the past 40 minutes on Facebook, emails and YouTube.

Darn.

Good read.

2011-09-17T00:37:00.000+08:00

Occasionally on Facebook, one may chance upon a good read. When that happens to me, I'd feel a sense of elation, much like discovering a hidden treasure at a place where I had least expected it. It almost justifies all that mindless hours spent scrolling down the News Feed. I really like it when I chance upon a good read. Not just on Facebook, but really, anywhere on the net.

I can't deny that I don't have the luxury of reading widely. I don't have the luxury of reading for leisure at all. This lack of free time just makes every new discovery of a good read very much more valuable.

The thing about reading is that it really takes patience. A lot of effort is put into sourcing for something 'worth our time.' I admit that due to laziness, I often end up wasting leisure time on television or other mindless activities, instead of finding something constructive to read. When I do find something I'm happy to be reading, I often spend way too much time on it. In the end, I often conclude that whatever I had just read had no impact on me whatsoever.

Hugely disappointing, that.

After rambling for so long, I'm going to get to the point. The reason I started this post was because I found something that I so enjoy reading. Pan Pan's blog. Or, as of this evening, via a Facebook link, Pan Pan's cycling blog. I must have already mentioned Pan Pan's blog a couple of weeks ago. That time, I was reading a particular post that she wrote about her experience teaching us in PKU. I was touched. Reading things from her brought me back to those hectic two weeks, when we'd every now and then receive emails from her, full of words of wisdom and encouragement. Her blog post dedicated to us, her students, was fashioned much in the same manner. It was very nostalgic. Reading that post on my way to school gave me the strength to get through the day.

In this fast-paced life in Singapore, anything that reminds me of my wonderful experience in various locations abroad this summer is like a breath of fresh air. It's like a lifeline that I grab on to with my vice-like death grip. But anyway, I accidentally found myself at P's blog again yesterday, because I clicked on the wrong link from my history panel. To my surprise, there was a new entry. I found myself sucked into it promptly.

There's just something about the way P writes that captivates me. It makes my breath catch at times and gives me goosebumps more often than I'd care to admit. And more than once, I found tears welling up in my eyes.

Perhaps it's because I can really identify with the emotions that her writing stirs up in me. Perhaps she and I have certain similarities. I don't know the reason and I don't really care to examine it. I just know with dead certainty that reading what she writes is like oxygen to my world. This world which is rapidly turning into a black hole, sucking everything that means something to me into the bottomless abyss.

P is so genuine. That's what I love about her. 5 minutes into our first seminar on the 8th of August, she captured me entirely. She speaks with such conviction, yet her humility shines through. She carries herself with such confidence, yet she exudes an approachable air. I don't know how she does it, really. I've said it once before and I'm gonna say it once more. I want to be like her. She's my role model.

I don't know if it's good of me to broadcast P's blogs on mine. But I believe that good things ought to be shared, although in this case the good things don't belong to me, and I therefore don't know if I have the right to share them. Nevertheless, the links are gonna be embedded here in my post, because I doubt my blog has much of an outreach, so even if there would be harm done, it wouldn't be much. Besides, her blogs are public on the web.

After a whole paragraph of justifying my actions, I shall post this entry and hope that whoever chances upon this will find their own source of inspirational good reads to keep them going in tough times. Or, if times are good to begin with, to make good times even better. Reading is a balm to my soul.

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Not myself

2011-09-15T11:12:00.001+08:00

Lately, I'm becoming more and more like a stranger. I've been behaving in ways that I'd never have identified with previously. The most regrettable part of it all is that all my changes have been for the worse.

I've been harbouring thoughts of skipping classes. I've been unfriendly. I've been wasting time more than before. Even physically, I haven't been well. I nursed a headache for the whole day yesterday. I've been sneaking in as much sleep as I possibly can, to no avail. Even sleep hours feel like wasted hours.

I've been feeling very out of touch with friends abroad, which is why I've been trying to justify extensive periods of time spent online.

I think, to conclude, there has been a general feeling of insatiable appetites. I don't feel satisfied with anything. Furthermore, there have been so many small frustrations. Everything just makes everything worse.

It's 11.11. I made a wish and I hope it'll all be better soon.

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Now up... is down.

2011-09-08T11:57:00.000+08:00

Note: This post has been edited (and lengthened) at midnight of the next morning.

I'm just gonna draft a quick one, and then rush off for my lecture at noon. Everything's been going downhill lately. Especially my vigour for life. It's diminishing quickly into nothing but wisps of smoke.

This morning I woke up at the time that I should be leaving. I can't deny that my sleeping habits have gradually but inevitably been moving towards this kind of disaster. Anyway, I couldn't just rush out of the house, because I haven't packed my bag. Besides, there was plenty to pack, since there's badminton + gym with the uni besties in the afternoon. I also had to pack my showering necessities, so that I won't make it to AIESEC LC meeting and Meet & Greet of new members in my sweaty state after sports.

In summary, I realised that there was no way I could make it to class in time. My first thought was that okay, I'm gonna swagger into the LT an hour late, and be completely lost for the entire lesson. Not much of a loss, really, because I haven't been understanding ANYTHING that I listen to in class. Besides, most of the time, my attention drifts after 3 meagre minutes. I'm a complete failure at being a good student. But surprise, I suddenly recalled that there was another lecture group at noon, therefore I could just go and attend the later class! I was saved.

In my moment of relief, my fatigue overtook me and I fell asleep once more, on the sofa in the living room. Kakak's sweeping and mopping awakened me perhaps 10 minutes later, and I kinda staggered back into my room, fell headfirst onto my bed and just... slept like a log.

I haven't got a clue why I've been NEEDING 8 hours every day. At least 8 hours. If I get up before I get my time, I just fall back asleep right away. It's as though I can't control my own body. It's terrible.

Anyway, I next awakened when Kakak (who had asked me if I had school during my few moments of wakefulness earlier that morning) knew that if she didn't do something, I'd oversleep. Thus, she very tactfully awakened Shaelyn, in the process awakening me, who realised to my horror that I was late once again.

I had made plans with Hui Jun, to have lunch together, because honestly I do miss her. For the past couple of semesters in NUS, I always had 1 tutorial with her and her alone, and perhaps that's why life feels rather different now, with absolutely no common classes with her. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to campus in time to meet her for lunch. So with many apologies, I sent her a text message and proceeded to get ready.

Blah blah blah. And then I was sitting on the MRT, feeling a little lost and unhappy at how sloppy I have made myself. Halfheartedly reading my textbook, I was, because I have so much work to complete and not enough time or determination or efficiency to do it the way I want to. Suddenly I realised, I had packed all my essential things for badminton this afternoon, except socks. Just as Peiling had done last year.

I felt terribly embarrassed of myself. How could I have forgotten? It did cross my mind when I was washing my face, but I promptly forgot about it after I came out of the washroom.

I sent Peiling a message and there was no reply. There hasn't been a reply from Hui Jun either, regarding my apologetic 'sorry I kinda can't have lunch with you and have to abandon you an hour before the agreed time even though I was the one who asked you out first'. Damn, I'm horrible.

In order to cheer up, I started checking my email. A message from Claudio made me feel a whole lot better, just because it contained a few sentences about how he was tired of his uni, tired of his classes and tired of Milan in general. I could totally identify with that. He said that he was looking for another opportunity like Beijing and hopefully AIESEC could provide for it. Oh, my sentiments exactly.

I'd love to continue this story about how many things became okay again, but now I'm late for lecture. I'll be back later in the evening to complete the post with edits.

---

After a very long day, I'm back home (it's midnight) and here to complete the post which I started more than 12 hours ago in the NUS Central Library. I corrected three minor typographic errors above. I dislike typographic errors because they distort the meaning of words and may thus confuse unsuspecting readers. Some particularly 'strategic' typos also makes it look as though I don't know my grammar/spelling very well.

My day got much better when I stepped into the Central Forum and saw the Milo truck. I had 2 cups, and instantly felt better. Seated at the computer in the library 3 minutes after the Milo, I received the reply from Peiling that she could lend me socks. I also received an 'it's okay' message from Hui Jun.

I thought of how Sergii told me how negativity attracted negativity, when we were walking from Petrivka to Blockbuster. It was dusk, we were going for ping pong and he brought the topic up, when I mentioned that Sofia didn't want to come and join us because of some unhappy things.

It was a nice evening. That was when the seed of my belief and positivism was planted. (We also nearly got knocked down by a car, but that's a story for another day.) From then on, I just believed. I'm losing the faith gradually. I must not!

I think it's rather clear that my fatigue has set in. I am not really making much sense anymore. I'm just wondering, at this point in time, can people still say that I'm an optimistic, positive kind of girl? Because people who knew me in Ukraine knew me as that. I don't know if I've lost it all already.

My point is just that... I was suddenly reminded of how my negativity has been building on negativity. And it's time to generate some positive vibes so that I'll just become happier and happier as of today.

Now, time to stop this rambling.

Lunch bunch. But dinner.

2011-09-07T22:00:00.001+08:00

Met the lunch bunch for dinner again, for the second time in two weeks. It was nice because I got to see Liuhui and Wanqin again, for the first time in a whole year.

There's always something sweet meeting people that you grew up with. But there's a tinge of sadness because I always miss those days.

Today's dinner conversation got a little heavy in my opinion, when talk turned to jobs and future prospects. With three lawyers among the five of us present today, I felt a little overwhelmed because they all seemed pretty clear about their preferences. While I'm still struggling to live from day to day, my friends have moved on to the next biggest thing in life - careers.

I feel very proud of my friends, and rather reflective about myself, after tonight's dinner. But for now, I should just finish my assignments before I get overly ambitious...

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Wednesday blues.

2011-09-07T15:58:00.001+08:00

Last night, wasted away. The only good thing: meeting Hayley for dinner, sharing experiences.

This morning, wasted away. Slept too much (though it was just 7 hours), spent a lot of time dilly-dallying.

Right now, wasting away. Not understanding a single thing that the lecturer is saying, watching way too many of my peers who know exactly what is going on highlighting and writing and typing away.

---

I feel lousy. I haven’t felt good in quite a while. Actually, these couple of weeks that I’ve been home, the feel-good times have been few and far between. I don’t like that. I miss my ‘I’m invincible’ feeling. I miss Sergey telling me, ‘Remember the secret?))’ Somehow, when he was around, it was easy to believe. When I’m telling it to myself, I just feel this ugly thing called ‘doubt’, the cousin of ‘disbelief’.

---

The day before yesterday started beautifully, with me reading Pan Pan’s blog. At first it was nice just reading about China, and Beijing, and our two weeks there. And then, it got very deep and emotional, and inspiring. I love the way she writes, just like the way she talks. It’s simple and plain, but it has so much truth. It’s very compelling. I want to be like her.

But last night, I finished reading her three entries about China, and all of a sudden there’s almost nothing left to push me on.

---

I’ve lost something very precious to me. And well, this is totally not emotional and figurative. I mean literally, I lost something. I don’t dare to write about it in detail, as if I really succumbed to the fact that it’s gone for good.

Therefore, beware, you thief of my precious thing, be it a person or an item that is cunningly obscuring my precious thing, I’m going to ransack the whole house till I find it.

Chinese dance. ♥

2011-09-05T00:58:00.001+08:00

Jiayun posted videos of our Chinese dance days. I mean, our two dances from year 1. I was so touched watching them that I almost started to cry.

The first was our endearing J1 dance. The song that we were so embarrassed to hear, because it was so Chinese. We used to laugh and sing along with it during the off-practice hours. But oh, that dance was so fun. And the steps from that dance really stuck! I still remember them.

The second was our SYF item, the one that we were so proud of. I remember, there were just 8 of us who were selected to dance with the seniors. It was a great privilege and I improved so tremendously. But oh, all the time and effort we put in… And my injury the day before the competition. Emotional roller-coasters, those times.

All those effort we put in when we were young… Just for the perfection of those dances. I’m a little incoherent right now. I ought to sleep because I have class in 7 hours’ time. I have to get up in about 5 hours. But I just have to write a post right now, because this feeling of nostalgia is overwhelming.

We were so young then. But we had dreams, and we were determined. We trained, we sacrificed, we bonded, we laughed and we cried. It was like our life. We danced. We danced our hearts out. Dancing is something I fell in love with. Dancing was all about control, but dancing was freedom. It’s a beautiful feeling when I danced. My heart would sing.

I remember those exhausting days, on top of school work, on top of family obligations, we danced. We practised till we ached to the bones, till we could hardly roll off our beds the next morning due to our protesting muscles. We skipped meals, forwent homework, we put in our all for the dancing.

And when we stopped dancing, we just… split. And if not for Jiayun, I don’t know when we’d all come together with this fuzzy feeling in the pits of our stomach.

I don’t know about the rest, but to me, Chinese dance was the only reason I went to school every day. It was indeed my pride and my joy. I loved the dancers, the dances, dancing. It was where I saw success if I put in the effort. Now, thinking back, my heart aches.

It aches for the passion which was so quickly gone. It aches for the lost time which could have been put into academic pursuits. It aches for my physical body which I put through all the pain of stretching and conditioning and dancing. Oh, all those sprained ankles and blistered feet. The injured muscles and ligaments and joints. All those bruises that were the size of palms, purple and green on my legs, scaring my friends and family.

It’s bittersweet. Somehow, though, I just wish I could do it all over again, once more. Those days… ♥

[Edit@1.11am: I clicked on my ‘dance’ tag to read more nostalgic Chinese dance posts, but was surprised by ballroom dancing content. And then I read more posts and came to HHK dance times… Can’t help noticing, my blogging style was so different then! I was so cheerful, and my sense of humour was… Nice. It was nice. I like reading my older posts from 2009, I conclude.]

Newly acquired.

2011-09-04T16:37:00.001+08:00

I declare that there is not another purchase that I was more satisfied with than the purchase of my new phone.

The only recent purchase that triumphs this was the purchase of my Ukrainian flag bracelet, which I unfortunately lost within the first 24 hours. Someday I’ll go to Ukraine and buy another. Or perhaps I’ll ask a Ukrainian to buy one for me and bring it along to wherever in the world we may be meeting next. Yes, that sounds like a plan.

Okay I’ve digressed. I just wanted to say, I love my new phone. I feel like I can conquer the world now, oh yes. And it’s like… The best. Really.

Wrong.

2011-09-03T12:47:00.001+08:00

I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I don’t mean it in the sense of how the phrase is usually used, as in I’m not in a bad mood. But rather, I don’t feel myself today. As usual, I’m rather overwhelmed by how quickly life is moving on without me, but today, more than ever, I’m missing the yellow and blue soooo much. So much that it’s almost a physical discomfort. Oh, I haven’t had the physical pain for an emotional pain ever since my late teenage years.

I think I started this semester on the wrong foot. I don’t know what’s going on in all of my classes, and just as I’m breaking out of the surface of the murky water to draw in a breath, I get submerged once more by the next tidal wave. Oh, what is this life I’m living?

I think I’m changing too much for my own comfort. I never really examine myself, but today, while commuting (oh the irony), I suddenly realised that I’ve stopped caring about a lot of things that I used to care so much about. And I just don’t love anymore. Or maybe, the value of love has just greatly depreciated? I cannot understand myself. I scare myself sometimes, but most of the time, I don’t really care. Hardly anything impresses me anymore. I miss being impressed.

Impress me, life, throw me surprises and watch me manoeuvre through the obstacles in ways that will surprise even myself. But please, life, take care of me and keep me safe.

P.S. How I wish I have my Ukraine flag bracelet with me. For those short 24 hours that I had it, I was so happy. Now, this bittersweetness just gnaws at me. Too often I love how everything that happens in life happens for a reason. But for things like these, I just cannot stop asking, why, why must it happen this way? Why make me fly over the clouds only to drag me right down again?

While commuting.

2011-09-01T09:15:00.001+08:00

Hopefully, in a couple of days’ time, I would have something sure and definite to do while commuting. I’m getting a new mobile phone, it has been decided. All those talk about how I wouldn’t subscribe to consumerism seems to have gone to waste; I have 2 perfectly working phones, yet I made a choice to get another. In fact, the decided phone happens to be the best available on the market. Well, that’s as far as I’ve heard from family and friends. I personally have no idea.

The thing is, to justify my need for a new device, I’ve been majorly bored while commuting. This extreme exasperation about time slipping through my fingers started way way way ago, in January or February of this year, while I was taking the STM in Montreal. I just hate the wastage of precious minutes! Sure, I could do some reading while on the metro. However, I’d be lying to myself if I say that reading is an effective use of time. It’s simply too difficult to focus on anything important while on a moving vehicle, with people moving in and out. Not to mention, the chances of finding a seat is highly dependent on way too many factors. Therefore, there’s always the problem of keeping my balance.

I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new counterpart, and together we shall fight boredom while commuting, and be heroes of effective time usage. Yesterday, the ride home on the MRT was terribly long and boring, as if to highlight the absence of my boredom-fighting, time-saving device. I have been very disappointed with myself lately, for being entirely out of control of my own wellbeing.

As I’m writing this, I’m on board the MRT once again, on my way to class. More often than not, I have too much ambition but too little determination. I have so many things to do, but just not enough determination to keep to my target and get them done. I dislike that very much, honestly. And, as always, there are all these external influences, steering me away from the path of righteousness. Sigh.

I think it is time to move on to a happier subject. I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while – the foray last week into the jungles of Bishan, the campus of RJC. Oh, it was a nice visit. Very nice indeed. The last time I was back at the familiar Rafflesian campus 2 years ago, I remember feeling terribly out of place. All the little children looked way too young! Thankfully, there wasn’t such a feeling this time. In fact, all the little children looked like how our friends used to look like! Okay it probably doesn’t make much sense. What I mean is, it was very surprising that many faces looked very familiar to us.

The campus itself was generally the same, although there were some new touches to it that made it look ever more sophisticated. I love my school. Being there brought back so many pleasant memories. It almost felt as though we never left at all. All that schoolgirl feeling just came right back. I could have gone and put my uniform back on, and become a student of RJC once more. I wish I could. Those best years of growing up have been wasted, sort of. I wish I could do it all once again and make the right choices this time.

The highlight must have been going into LT3 and realising that this might very well have been the LT where I first heard from Prof DQ. I could almost imagine him standing there… The other highlight was visiting my old homeroom A52, which was surprisingly unlocked and unoccupied, so I could actually go right in and sit at a desk. My goodness, I could really have been back 3 years in time. I miss those exhausting days.

As of now, though, I’m desperately trying to regain my confidence that I got over the summer but swiftly lost almost as soon as I was put back into this competitive and unfriendly NUS environment. It’s strange; it’s my third year in this university but I just can’t seem to make sense of how things work. I can’t find my place. It’s as though I don’t belong here. But I do belong here, and I do intend to make myself feel welcome no matter how unwelcome (and inadequate) I may be feeling right now.

I am trying so hard to live up to my promise that I’ll live everyday like how the summer has been. Live everyday with no regrets, making the best decisions at every9 moment. And therefore, I am braving the fatigue to go for a lecture that I’m probably not going to enjoy. But I promise myself, I will get as much as I can out of it.

[Edit @ 9.14AM: I was 10 minutes late for lecture. 10 minutes late AGAIN. Despite trying hard to wake up earlier and leave earlier, I was still late. WHYY?]

Losing my purpose.

2011-08-31T09:37:00.002+08:00

As life settles down, I feel like I’m losing my focus, my purpose and my vigour for life – all of which I had gradually and inevitably developed while I was in Ukraine. While it wasn’t an entirely painstaking process developing those attributes, it sure is a painful process losing them.

I’m losing the excitement for life, losing the aspiration for the future. I’m losing sight of the future altogether, really. It’s not a nice feeling. It feels… Bleak.

I have been late for almost everything recently. I just hurried to school to buy my textbook from someone, and was 10 minutes late, thus making her a tad bit late for her seminar. And then I saw that she charged me a high price and misled me to believe that her book was in a better condition than it actually is. As a result I got more than a little annoyed, and thus didn’t even feel guilty about making her late for class. Hold on a second and let us examine this. Don’t you think it’s wrong on more than one level? ‘It’ in reference to my state of mind.

Some stranger just sat down at the table which I’m at, though 95% of the tables at The Deck are currently unoccupied. I’m completely like -WTF?- but I guess it’s okay. Which brings me to another point – I have been easily frustrated. Okay, scratch that. I’m really rather bad-tempered lately, and outbursts happen without my knowledge of the annoyance even building up at all. This is different, and this is bad. The worse part is that I immediately assume a state of calm, and begin talking to myself in my head that it’s okay, it’s a small matter, nothing to get worked up about.

I feel slightly out of balance. On one hand there are constant complaints and grumbling going on inside my head. On the other hand, I catch myself talking to myself in my head more often than ever before. I feel as though there are really two tiny fighting people inside my head. It is a little crazy, yes.

I want to get things back on track again. I want that feeling of ‘I can do anything I want to do, just because.’ I miss my friends. I miss how they gave me confidence to be my best. It’s the last day of August today. Hard to believe that at the beginning of this month, I was in Kyiv, having the best night of my life. Harder to believe that in the middle of this month, I was celebrating the end of a major exam with my new friends who felt like family, in Beijing. The hardest to believe must be the fact that here I am, with a stable and enviable life, wishing that there’d be something more exciting, wishing that I had more worth living for. Talk about ingratitude.

I ought to be ashamed of myself. I’m truly an excitement-junkie. I don’t know if I should be happy about that. Probably not.

One last thing. Christie has been maddeningly slow. And by maddeningly, I mean MADDENINGLY. Honestly, my patience wear thin.

Another moment in history.

2011-08-24T17:15:00.001+08:00

My favourite professor just commented on my Facebook status. AHHHH. :D

I should have a tag called ‘Nostalgia’.

2011-08-24T16:28:00.001+08:00

I’m sitting here in the Media Room of the NUS Central Library. Nostalgia.
Most of the time we don’t know what we have until we don’t have it.

I was looking at random notes from Montreal times in Evernote. Nostalgia.
Sometimes reading something from a long time ago brings back memories so fresh, feelings that we’ve long forgotten.

I’ve been thinking of sleepy morning lectures and exciting afternoon seminars in PKU. Nostalgia.
Little details often bring smiles, such as the memory of seeing the Evernote application on Prof Quah’s Dell machine.

I see people who look like my friends from far far away. Nostalgia.
When you miss someone, you see them all over the place. When you miss many people, every stranger on the street makes you do a double take.

I admit, I still haven’t settled back down to life here. And every moment, I’m losing something more. And more. It’s a sad thing…

An antique post.

2011-08-24T16:13:00.001+08:00

I discovered this antique post in Christie, last saved 28 May 2011 4.54PM. It’s far from complete and seems to be a detailed account of the day we left Montreal. I shall post it here. It is probably a nice continuation of the recounting done in my last post here.

The walk to the Metro station wasn’t really tiring but neither was it an easy walk with all our bags. I had a backpack and a tote bag, JY had his Timbuk2 and the trolley luggage. Upon arriving at the station, we missed the train. I took the time to keep my already-dry towel into the luggage. We got a nice corner of the carriage when the train came. The ride to Guy-Concordia was uneventful.

JY deposited the bags with me and headed straight for his paper when we arrived at Concordia’s engineering building. I sat at one of those wooden benches near the security guard’s booth and began settling the NYC apartment and flight matters. For that hour or so, I booked the NYC apartment, checked in online for our upcoming flights and copied the itinerary into my notebook, right down to minor details such as transit terminals and whether there was a meal on board. I felt very pleased with myself. I really enjoy the feeling of being in control of what’s coming. I dislike plans going off-tangent or surprises jumping at me.

8PM was Skype time with Mom. I was barely 10 minutes into the conversation when I spotted a very familiar figure at my 11 o’clock, 2 tables away. It was JY and he was sitting there counting the receipts. Surprise, surprise, he left his 3-hour paper after just 1 hour. He did say he’ll try to finish fast so that he can come out and settle all those miscellaneous things that we need to settle, but I didn’t expect him to be THAT fast. I tried to catch his eye to tell him that he can have his computer back but he didn’t look up till a while later. He signalled back that I could have the computer so I went ahead and Skyped with Mom for another 40 minutes or so.

When I was done Skyping, we shifted to a small round table near the glass wall of the building so that JY could charge his computer. The battery was somewhat depleted by my near-2 hours of usage. Meanwhile, we decided to work on the NYC itinerary. Upon deciding to get the CityPass, we booked them and realised to our dismay that the e-tickets had to be printed. It was 9.40PM by then and we were supposed to meet Melissa at 10 at Berri-UQAM. JY made a dash for the library one street and a couple more buildings away while I started packing. I couldn’t leave the table to fill up water bottles and remove contact lenses because I had to watch the bags. It was an anxious few minutes of waiting. We did everything we had to at lightning speed and rushed for Berri-UQAM. I’m suddenly reminded, as I’m typing this, of those several occasions when we ran towards the Guy-Concordia station so that we could catch the 78 bus from Monk back to our street. I always felt stupid when I ran, and also felt like a moving hazard endangering the other commuters.

We arrived at Berri-UQAM shortly after Mel. I spotted her and was calling out to her but she just kept walking. Realised that she had earphones on, so hurried over and tapped her on the shoulder before she wandered off. We made our way to the bus terminal. There was a crazily long queue for the bus to NYC, but it was supposed to leave at an earlier timing. We joined the queue at first, but decided to sit elsewhere instead and let the people on the earlier bus take our place. Eventually we realised that the queue for both buses had fused into one because of some Greyhound logistics screw up (what’s new?) so we stood up and joined the queue. It took forever, totally did, before we boarded. Mel wasn’t given any trouble though she printed her tickets on a single sheet of paper. Good that the Greyhound people were kind.

Settled down for the bus ride. It wasn’t long before I was crying at the lights passing outside the window. Crying for what was being left behind, crying that the journey ahead wasn’t going to be as imagined because of the uninvited company. (It turns out the uninvited company wasn’t as bad as previously envisioned, but that’s a story for later.)

The ride was long and nothing happened except a little glitch at the customs, which cost us 6 USD and was possibly a payment that we needn’t have made (because we already had ESTA.) I have a real problem with the many confusing procedures with regards to the US customs. They’re not very nice and not very efficient either. They have too many things that they confuse even themselves. We’ve applied for ESTA and paid our fees already so I have no idea why we still had to pay for yet another Visa waiver. Nevertheless I was too sleepy and compliant to have realised anything at the point in time.

We finally arrived in NYC the next morning. I was awake for most of the later half of the ride, especially after the sky had brightened. Seeing the familiar Manhattan skyline made me pleased beyond words. It’s strange why I have such a connection with NYC. I fell in love with it almost at once and have this unexplainable love for it. It's irrational, therefore I’m unable to affect anyone else with my love for this city. Anyway, let’s just end this paragraph by saying that I was extremely pleased to be back in NYC. I was gushing about it a little, but I wasn’t overly excited due to the remnants of the unhappiness from the night before. Further, I didn’t want to scare the friends with my over-enthusiasm.

We arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal and proceeded to the meeting point to meet JH. Our bus turned out to be more than an hour late so we were worried that JH has been worrying about us.

Pissed off.

2011-08-24T16:03:00.001+08:00

This post was dated 8th April 2011. 5.05AM, which I suppose was 5.05PM in Montreal. I don’t remember what happened, but it’s kinda interesting to have a record of my bad mood… I’d like to think that the me now is so extremely different from the me then.

I’m pissed off I’m so effing pissed off.

To give myself some credit I will blame it on the hormones and not on my actual temper but I don’t know, I’m just so fcking annoyed by everything.

I hate when the positivity that I generate within me just gets completely annihilated by the external factors, such that I have to keep generating and regenerating.

It’s so freaking tiring to keep telling myself to breathe, and calm down, and take it easy. I hate this. I hate the attitude I’m seeing.

You know, it’s not as though I’m fucking up your life, so don’t show that fucking attitude on your face because it pisses me off to no end. Especially because I’m trying so hard.

I don’t give a damn anymore.

Talk about surprises, and then a long reflection.

2011-08-21T15:02:00.001+08:00

This post was written between 7pm to 8.30pm yesterday, while I was flying from Beijing to Singapore.

I am generally known to proclaim that I do not like surprises. I often like to emphasise to people that I like things to be ordinary and predictable, because mainly, I like to know what’s going to happen next.

Sometimes, when I try to figure out if I truly dislike surprises, I try to think of wonderful surprises which negate this general belief towards myself. However, I am never able to recall any specific instance whereby a surprise was genuinely 100% perfectly strictly preferred to the ordinary expected outcome.

Today, I had the best surprise that I’ve had in a while. It wasn’t a ‘SURPRISE! This (lovely gift) is for you’ kind of circumstance. Instead, it was a ‘OMG, what a lovely surprise that things turned out this way!’

To cut to the chase, I had an unexpected coincidental run-into with three other summer school participants at the Beijing airport. The entire process can be dramatically told with all my usual story-telling rhetoric, but right now I’m really too sleepy to be an engaging story-teller. (Slept just 2 hours in the past 36.) Furthermore, I am a little undecided as to how I should structure this post, therefore I just wanna pause for a moment to consider my options.

Okay, I think I wanna begin by talking about my general feelings towards the past two weeks, and how unexpected a state of being I currently find myself in.

Actually, my above statement is slightly inaccurate, in the sense that I never had any expectations to begin with – thus I cannot be said to be in an ‘unexpected’ state of being. But to qualify my statement, I shall say that basically, had I had any kind of expectation about how the LSE-PKU summer school would have turned out, it wouldn’t be how wonderful reality had come into fruition.

I’m very surprised by the many elements of similarities that this two-week programme had with my five-week stint in Ukraine. In fact, in a way, this was a highly academic, condensed version of my Ukrainian adventure. I met many international friends, this time all of whom were truly impressive in terms of academic or professional achievements. The company was obviously more Asian, which is more comfortable in a sense, but no less exciting. The fun was decidedly less crazy and more organised, probably because of how tied down by work we were. The ‘hanging out’ that took place was generally confined to the few short hours of lunch break that we had every day. Despite these differences from the Ukrainian experience of a more human-relations-oriented, physically-trying, emotionally-draining yet ultimately rewarding crazy five weeks, the experience that I had in Beijing generally felt very similar to that in Ukraine.

Perhaps it is just due to my perception of things. I have begun to live life with a general goal, but with no fantastical, sugar-coated imaginary expected outcome. I basically keep in mind what I’m doing something for, and I just… take things as they come. I am still largely driven by emotions rather than duty and responsibility, but with the general goal in mind, I think I’ve narrowed down how far I can deviate from my intended path. Which is very good, in my opinion, because I’ve taken on more of a position of experiencing-and-then-reflecting, rather than expecting-and-then-trying-so-damn-hard-to-make-reality-fit-expectations.

In a way, life is a lot more easy to live, when one just lives. I can basically enjoy any kind of situation that comes my way. I’ve become a lot more easygoing as a person. And I think that my change was rather dramatically exponential within the past half a year, although I believe I have always been easygoing as a person.

Right now, sitting on the plane going home from Beijing, I can easily say that I’ve gone through the summer school with absolutely no regrets, just the same as how I’ve gone through my AIESEC exchange with no regrets. (Speaking of which, I met a couple of AIESECers in Beijing!) I think I went through SEP with many many many regrets. It’s kinda startling to realise that SEP was just a few months ago, also during the year of 2011. I think I was, in many ways, a different person then. Perhaps that was why I didn’t enjoy SEP the way I ought to have. I’m still very grateful for the opportunity and the experience. SEP probably played a large role in making me the person I am today. But I have to say that the pre-2011 me and the current me, although fundamentally the same person, have many distinct characteristics from each other. If I were the person I am today when I landed in Montreal on the 27th of December 2010, I might have gone through the following 4 and a half months in a very different fashion than what actually happened.

Okay, I realise that this is very wordy; I’m doing a lot of thinking. Perhaps, to make things more light-hearted from now on, I shall just talk about random things and feelings about Beijing. It’s kinda chronologically imbalanced to be recounting about the Beijing experience before doing the Ukraine one. The old me would probably have stubbornly refused to begin talking about Beijing till I’d finished talking about Ukraine. And then I’d have ended up talking about neither. The new me doesn’t really care… Therefore, time to be all sweet and nostalgic about Beijing!

To make things more structured, perhaps I should begin with the largest chunk of my time spent in Beijing – the summer school itself. This is the sole purpose that I had, when I had come from home for yet another ‘adventure’. I didn’t intend to make a whole lot of friends, neither did I intend to travel to a lot of places. I didn’t want to do anything that detached me from my emotional tether towards my Ukrainian experience and ‘Ukrainian’ friends. (Ukrainian is in quotation marks, because I’m referring to the friends that I made in Ukraine, rather than Ukrainian citizens. Similarly, I’ll talk about the friends I made in Beijing as my Beijing friends, although the majority of them were not from Beijing.) Basically, I came into BJ with the thought that okay, I’m gonna get through these two weeks of crazy hell-like studying, get my credits and get out of here.

Well, things didn’t really turn out this way. It turned out way better.

I ended up learning a lot, instead of studying. I enjoyed every single moment spent in my lectures, merely for the presence of one of the leading contemporary economists as my lecturer. I admit I was dozing off so frequently, but that doesn’t mean anything except that I’m just this pig that needs m0re sleep than I can usually afford. I absolutely Adore Professor Quah. Adore with a capital A. He’s just the same as I remember him from 2008. He is a very charismatic speaker, and very clear with his explanations. Absolutely engaging, even when talking about the most boring things. Okay, fine, I fell asleep in class, but honestly, I blame that on myself, not on Prof DQ. The Prof is brilliant. I cannot even express in words how exciting it has been, just having the knowledge that I’m taking his class. I remember, when he walked into class on that first morning, I was holding my breath and my heart skipped a beat. I admit, I’m a fan. He has many existing fan clubs, maybe I should go join one. Okay, back to being serious, all I’m saying is that I’m not exaggerating when I say that I feel so honoured and privileged to have been a part of this course. I proudly say that I listened to Prof DQ talk for nearly 4o hours over 10 days, and that I have been inspired multiple times. I really love how he makes economics so accessible, yet so professional. In a sense, the way he talks about economics can make anybody understand what he is talking about, but at the same time let people who know economics gain a deeper level of understanding about the subject. This dual outcome from his way of expression is very interesting for me.

Truth was, I really hardly studied these past two weeks. I didn’t put in the amount of effort that I would have liked to for my term paper. But you know what, it doesn’t really matter. What matters was that whatever happened, I lived every moment fully and I really, honestly, have no regrets whatsoever.

Another most amazing thing that I never really expected was the existing relation that I have built with the professor. I did come with the vague intention of finding an opportunity to tell the Prof that I had listened to him once in 2008, remember his talk so vividly, was so impressed that I jumped at the chance to come for this summer school as soon as I saw his name on the list of faculty. However, I didn’t have specific plans as to how to approach him to make this one-way speech take place. In fact, when I realised how many fans he had, I kinda got thrown off balance. Why would he have time for some girl, who had listened to him talk once and been utterly impressed by him, when he had to answer to the affections of other fans who read all of his publications and basically worship him?? Well, that was always at the back of my mind, but I was absolutely proven wrong when he not only gave me his time of the day, but also really made an effort to build a relation. Basically, he made me feel so special!! (Details of the Conversation with Professor DQ shall come in another post, which I had promised after the crazy post titled ‘A moment in History’, about the Twitter incident.)

Enough about the professor now. I honestly am not smitten, the same way I had been when I listened to him for 2 hours when I was a wide-eyed 17-year-old back in RJC, who had been swept off my feet by his compelling professionalism and impressive intellect. For the past two weeks, there had not been a single time when I felt the crazy fan-girl feeling towards the professor. Instead, I see him as an exemplary figure that I really strive to work towards. His accomplishments in life, coupled with his humility and friendliness towards his students really increase my respect towards him. He engages with everyone on an equal level, he doesn’t make us feel inferior to him just because he is the professor, although he is THE professor who has such amazing credentials. He is very young at heart and he doesn’t show it, except in his online persona, which just increases his enigma. I really admire the way the professor is. He is truly gracious in his actions, kind in his intentions but strict with his principles. He is the kind of person I want to be like.

Speaking of exemplary figures, Pan Pan is the BEST Teaching Assistant I have EVER, EVER, EVER had, and I love her very much. Yes, the past two weeks I had was really the epitome of quality education. Pan Pan is an amazing individual. She is so young, but so accomplished, so capable and so fun at the same time. I love the way she conducted the seminars, talking to us in a firm but friendly tone, throwing in one of her dazzling smiles every once in a while. Her personality really shines through and her commitment to her responsibility is something that I truly appreciate from the bottom of my heart. I really learned a lot from her, perhaps more than I had learnt from Prof D, because Pan Pan is after all a lot closer to us in terms of age. She shows how one can be extremely professional and yet not forget to have fun. Every word that she spoke was measured, yet sincere, and her entire being just overflowed with wisdom beyond her years. I am really impressed by Pan Pan’s firm standards towards us, and how it reflects how she is as a person. She has a very strong character, and is extremely tough towards herself. In the same way, she was tough towards us; she constantly thought of ways to improve the seminars to challenge us more. Yet, she never neglected to give us the encouragement that we needed. Honestly, I feel that we never did a very good job, but Pan Pan was never stingy with her words of encouragement. They were not praises; praises might have turned out insincere and superficial. Pan Pan’s words always carried weight, and always served their purpose. If the Prof gave a firm skeleton to our learning experience, Pan Pan gave us the flesh and meat. Without her, the entire experience would have been nonetheless great, but just not as wholesome as it was. Pan Pan added colour to the picture. Her willingness to share everything she knows to help us improve is something that I appreciated so much, and will definitely take away. She’s truly my role model.

As such, I conclude the section of my academic life at Peking University. I don’t wanna talk about the mundane things such as administrative matters and physical infrastructure because although they would help me in the future to remember exact details of what I experienced and saw, they are not the main lessons learnt.

Next, comes a short but important section on my host family. I cannot even begin to say how grateful I am for Aunty and Uncle to have warmly welcomed me into their home and made me feel so welcome during my 2 weeks. From them, I learnt how I should behave towards Miao, whom our family is currently hosting for 5 months. I have been sheltered by the hospitality of others and have benefitted so much from it. I tried my very best to be as cooperative as possible as a new addition to house and I think I had succeeded. There are many lessons learnt, both as how to behave as a host, and as a charge. I think I have learnt from this experience to be more generous and considerate. The experience in Natalya’s apartment in Kyiv also contributed to this aspect of my being. As a charge, it is important to break barriers and reduce awkwardness and tension. At the same time, it is absolutely vital to always keep in mind the invisible line between being a guest, and a proper member of the family. This is the consideration aspect. From Aunty and Uncle in Beijing, I learnt about the importance of generosity and sincerity in behaviour. It takes two hands to clap. As a host, to make someone feel welcome, a lot of effort must be put in, in my opinion. But I’m sure that with practise, it will become my habit to be gracious and generous. I do hope that when I return home later tonight, I will immediately assume the role of a good host towards Miao.

Speaking of Miao, her parents indeed helped me a lot by ferrying me to and from the airport. Nevertheless, they had never given me the same feeling of ease as Aunty and Uncle had. Perhaps it is due to their over-courteousness, which introduces an atmosphere of formality and owing of favours. I don’t blame it on them, though. I’m sure they feel much indebted to our family, for hosting their precious daughter for close to half a year. I believe that from this experience, as well, I have much to learn. My point right now, however, is merely to express how grateful I am for their help. I admit I feel rather burdened by what I have to help them do in return, but then again I remind myself, let’s not be so calculative about matters of human relations.

As such, I end the section on the host family, and now begin my favourite section. (And probably the last, unless I decide to have a section on the [nearly non-existent] travelling.) My new friends. (: My new friends are wonderful. Each person is unique and amazingly wonderful. Similar to Ukraine, I felt that there is much to learn from every individual. And this time, these learning points don’t even have to be deciphered by me. With my Ukrainian friends, I admit that I often saw faults first, before I saw value. With the Beijing bunch, their individual characteristics that are worth learning from are so blatantly exhibited that I needn’t even pause to identify them at all.

I met a really great bunch of people here. They are not hardly as crazy as the Ukrainian bunch was, which means the kind of fun we had was rather different. I cannot say which kind of fun I prefer, because they’re great in their own ways. I have accordingly adjusted my behaviour to fit into either group, but I realise that my personality is becoming increasingly fixed – I don’t camouflage as much as I had used to do in different circumstances. I’m not afraid to be the same person, the true blue me, in any company.

The difference between this Beijing gang and the Ukrainian gang is that the Ukrainian friends very quickly felt like family whereas the BJ gang is just a group of really good friends. This has got to do with the fact that we lived together in Ukraine, I’m pretty sure of it. Nevertheless, this BJ gang, similar to the Ukraine gang, will always remain special in my heart. Friends made when abroad sometimes holds a level of friendship superior to those forged at home, I wonder why. As a final note to this BJ-Ukraine comparison, I would just say very fairly that based on my judgement, I believe that given 5 weeks together, the BJ gang would have become as close as, if not closer than the Ukrainian gang. These two experiences also sees a strong parallel to my HKMUN friendships. We felt like a family then, too, although we spent just one week together.

There is one exception to the lack of familial feelings in Beijing, and that would be my newly adopted little brother, Branton. I love this boy, I do. I don’t know how to explain it, but generally, just, he’s a really good boy and I just feel so obliged to take care of him. I see so much potential in him as a person. If I had a brother like him, I would treasure him so much, really. The irony and absurdity of the situation is that this feeling of sisterly affection developed only over the past 48 hours or so, but developed at such an exponential rate that I’m really rather taken aback by our mutual appreciation of each others’ insignificant little actions. I don’t even know what suddenly created this impact on our previously very acquaintance-like formal friendship, but I’m glad for how things turned out, really. When he got his acceptance to LSE 2 days ago, I just couldn’t help feeling so extremely proud of him, as though I had a part to play in his accomplishment. It’s absolutely absurd, but I think that was the time I started to feel like he’s my brother. He’s a really good boy, he deserves everything. (:

Branton gives me a very contradictory feeling all the time. He’s so young but he looks so old, that’s the first superficial reason for my above declaration. A more serious reason would be how he is sometimes very mature, despite often really acting like the 18-year-old that he is. Next, I often have roll-eye moments towards him, much like my roll-eye moments toward the immaturity of my REAL sister, Shaelyn. Nevertheless, more often than not I have found myself very humbled by his very personality and behaviour. I find so much to learn from him, yet I feel like I have to educate him in many ways.

Our true bonding took place over me sharing my A grade essay with him, to help him see where he had gone wrong in getting an A- for his, instead of an A. I love his constant determination to do the best, and his high expectations for himself. Yet, he doesn’t get frustrated when he doesn’t manage to achieve his initial goals. I think he just sighs a little, grumbles a little and then quietly gets back to work again, to ensure that the next time he sets a goal, he’d be able to achieve it. I am really inspired by his quest for knowledge. (Well, not just him, but also many other friends such as Alex.) They, especially Branton, just love to read so much, and they really commit to their readings. It’s definitely something worth learning from. Another thing that I liked about Branton is the kind of economics questions that he asked in class. He ties concepts together in the most basic manner, but it is so economical that I’m embarrassed to have overlooked them in the first place. I am grateful for the economics concepts that he brought up, which I have once learnt but swiftly forgotten again. I have him to thank for refreshing my memory on those!

The last night in Beijing was made all the more enjoyable by the presence of my little brother. We took many sibling photographs and generally had a lot of fun. I’m touched by how much B chose to confide in me, and the content of his confidence really made my sisterly affections increase ten-fold. It’s a whole new ‘that’s my boy’ feeling which is strange but nice at the same time. I also loved how the confiding began in the first place, by our discovery that we do enjoy very similar types of music.

I’m beginning to ramble now, so I’m just gonna cut all of this short by saying that the person I miss most, and that I foresee that I will be missing the most, is Branton, my favourite boy. People might tease and say I should miss ‘romantic Italian boy’ instead, but no, I’m pretty sure they’re wrong about that.

Now that I’ve talked so much about my little brother, I ought to devote an equal amount of attention to my other friends. First on the list would be Isabel, a true treasure kind of girl. She’s very much like Peiling, I feel. Extremely easy to talk to, very considerate and kind. I got along with her immediately and she’s always the one I thought of first, in any situation. Isabel is a friend to keep and I’m so glad for my decision to break the ice. I’m even more glad that we’ll meet again back in Singapore!!

Next up, our favourite ‘French guy’. Roy was the one I turned to whenever I had problems. He gave me Freegate, and also all the powerpoint slides when we were all pretending to study in class that Thursday afternoon. He’s the first person who made me feel very welcome in the group, because he initiated a conversation and talked about his friends in NUS, that Wednesday afternoon while we were walking towards Big Pizza. Next, he’s such a good person to practise French with! I love how his French has a Chinese accent and his English has a French accent. (: Mon garcon francais, I really do miss him already. We have a couple of memorable moments too, such as when I saw in class that fateful Twitter notification and basically started to hyperventilate, while Roy just sat there indifferent. And also, I’ll always remember how he kept sleeping in class! I would giggle with Alex and Ming at Roy nodding off, and doodle ‘wake up’ squiggly texts and alarm clocks on his paper. Oh, and also, trying to translate everything on his paper into French! Ah, that was fun.

Qi Qi was my first real friend on the programme. There isn’t much to say about her except how grateful I am for her to extend her friendship towards me, as well as a future invitation to visit her in Beijing again.

Gmendra was a little genius and I just cannot begin to describe her. She confuses me to a great extent with her cheerful personality and tendency to cry; her jaw-dropping incredibly impressive CV and her absolutely self-proclaimed bimbo persona. She really confuses me, I cannot read her, I cannot understand her. I don’t know what drives her and I don’t know who she truly is. She is certainly the most difficult to read person here, and I must say that at the end of it all, I know her well, yet I don’t know her at all. I’m still really glad to have met someone like that, though. Once again, SO MUCH to learn from her.

Christina, Su, Alex, Koichi our Ichigo, Daniel our youngest boy, and that kind of makes up the core lunch group. New members include other HK guys, Robert who had the amazing Sahara desert experience, Natasha my group mate, Ines with the wonderful smile, and not to forget our dear LUNCH, who didn’t hang out with us much in the beginning, but then spent most of the last two days in our company.

Everyone was unique and wonderful. I love how we all came together and had nice jokes about all sorts of things. I loved our mealtime conversations about everything ranging from hypothetical questions to German accents. I loved how diverse we were, though we were mostly Asian people, because we had such diverse experiences. Everyone value-added to everyone else. It’s amazing how knowledge works.

It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t even mention Claudio at all, the Italian boy from the class two floors down, who was obviously very taken with me. He was really my main source of cultural exchange experience of this summer school, and I have so much to thank him for. Whatever the case, this is a relation that will be sure to last in the virtual world. He is a really good guy and once again, as usual, I’m very glad to have had the chance to meet him.

I honestly tired myself out with this writing. I think I must have spent an hour and a half on this. I’m going to catch a few more winks before the plane lands in another hour and a half, so I’m gonna leave now. I realise I actually never elaborated on what ‘surprise’ I was talking about in the title of the post. I think I will elaborate on that when I next write about the Beijing experience.

It may be an empty promise… But you know what? I don’t really mind. (:

This introspective night.

2011-08-17T17:04:00.001+08:00

This was written 12 August 2011, 12.17AM.

I’ve been feeling very introspective tonight. I had the longest online conversation that I’ve had with Len in a long while, and it would have gone longer if we hadn’t been interrupted. Honestly it wasn’t that long a conversation, but then honestly, too, Len and I haven’t really talked very much in months. In half a year, in fact, come to think of it. Wow, it’s been nearly half a year.

I was looking at photos from Ukraine. I thought that I’d seen them all too many times and memorised them all, but I was wrong. Some pictures still surprised me. Some still brought a smile to my face. It was nice. Last night, I spent 2 hours watching nearly every single video that I took in Ukraine. I didn’t touch 30% of them because they were of the children. I’m surprised; I thought that I’d miss the children very much, so I took so many photos and videos of them. However, reality is that I miss my crazy bunch of interns and AIESECers wayyyy more than I miss the children. I enjoy looking at photos and videos of my friends wayyyyy more than those of the children. I’ve found a really enjoyable way of looking at my photos. I zoom alllll the way in and look at everyone’s expressions. It’s highly entertaining. Carson, especially, makes me burst into laughter almost every time. It’s very sweet too, I mean, sometimes I look at the friends’ faces and I just go awwww… ♥

It’s so nice to see how much everyone changed. Through the photos and videos, I noticed how long everyone’s hair got! Also noticed how nearly everyone lost weight, and how we got a tan… No one at home can tell that I got a tan, but I remember how Sofie and I, despite seeing each other every day, could distinctly tell that we had both changed colour. I actually have a bikini tan-line to prove my point, not that I’m gonna show the tan-line to anyone, so never mind.

Oh yes, many videos reminded me of times that I’d already forgotten! Especially videos from the first few days. Ah, treasure. I just wish I had taken more. But there’s always a dilemma of being truly 100% in the present, with your attention on right now, rather than the camera, or on the other hand holding a camera, which is SO TROUBLESOME, but having the perpetual reward of the video, which is yours to keep for eternity.

I realise that I’m hardly sounding introspective at all, but I’m just gonna keep the title anyway because I hate editing titles. Before I had started writing this entry, I had thought that maybe this would turn out to be one of those entries that I had promised to write. This would have been the first promised entry, on how we all went from strangers to friends. A very touching post. But, I guess I’m not really in the mood.

I’m supposed to be writing my essay or reading that mountain of readings, but instead, every night, I just steep myself in this whole nostalgic atmosphere. I’ve been talking to Sergey online and it just feels so nice. Even silent company feels nice, as in this evening.

I can’t say how much Ukraine has changed me, because honestly I don’t know. But I feel like I’ve changed. For a person to feel a change in herself is probably an indication that she has truly changed. Because most often, other people can see us more clearly than ourselves. But this time I mean I truly feel like I’ve changed. For the better, I sure hope. Maybe I cannot attribute my change to Ukraine, but rather to the whole series of events in the recent couple of years. Or maybe even to my turning of age.

I don’t know. I’m too sleepy and this is all crap. I may decide not to publish, or to edit to great extents. I had more things on my mind but I’ve lost the train of thought.

Now I remember. Talking about change, I do feel better as a person, in general, so I’m very glad. Ukraine this summer is really the best experience of my life so far. It has triumphed over ISLE 2007 and also HKMUN 2010. It is way better than WAT 2010, and SEP 2011. And there, I’ve just listed out all the major activities that have defined my life thus far. Okay that’s a false statement because I have all my schooling days and my CCAs and my family life, which played huge parts in shaping me. But you get my drift. This summer was truly life-changing. I think it has been for every intern. We all had such different experiences but yet we all got so much out of it. I think it was the best summer for many of us. For many of the AIESECers in Kyiv, too.

What a wonderful world, what wonderful lives we have. And for me, it’s all thanks to Mom and Dad.

Was talking to Carson and I told him that I feel that this summer in Ukraine has made me a more positive person. I feel excited to return to Singapore to begin my next semester. I feel happier, more confident, more enthusiastic about my current life, more certain of future prospects. I love life more. It’s great.

This amount of disorganisation is probably unprecedented in this blog. I’m ashamed of myself and I will excuse myself before I continue blabbering.

Before I forget, I better time stamp this, since I won’t be able to post it till one and a half weeks later. It is now 12.12AM, Friday, 12th August 2011. I’m in Beijing.

A moment in History.

2011-08-16T11:31:00.001+08:00

I have another post which I wrote a week ago, but I haven’t got time to post it now. I have just 1 minute left of my break, during which the most AMAZING thing happened.

To cut the long story short, Prof DQ has requested to follow me on Twitter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I swear I nearly fainted from hyperventilation.

I shall tell the story in more detail later. For now, lesson time.

Impetus.

2011-08-06T12:50:00.001+08:00

Sometimes, some things are just meant to happen.

I woke up this morning not feeling any better than I did last night. Came online and wasted the last half hour on Facebook, looking at things that just made me feel worse and worse.

Sometimes, I’m a masochist too, in a sense. Inflicting this kind of emotional torture on myself, wanting to see things that I know will only make me feel worse. It’s terrible.

And then I came across a page in Ukrainian that someone had ‘liked’. Out of the title in Cyrillic, I only recognised “organisation’ and ‘AIESEC’ and ‘Kyiv’ in adjective form, as in Kyivian or something. Out of curiosity I clicked on the page and the first status that greeted me on this community page was: Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing.

And then I idled there for another couple of seconds before I closed the page, looked across to the next room where the little sister is hard at work, saw in my mind’s eye that fat book that I have to read by tomorrow and decided, blog and then it’s time to get to work; get the day started! It’s already afternoon after all, though it’s still early in the morning in Kyiv. Gotta stop living the GMT +3.

The secret.

2011-08-06T01:40:00.001+08:00

So often in life we’re searching for answers. Answers to questions that will not be answered. So often we have sleepless nights just thinking, and thinking, with no conclusion.

Who can answer these questions and give us some peace?

I believe in the secret to achieving success, but even with this belief, I get no rest because of the questions that just multiply over time.

I think I’m too tired and I’m exhausting myself with unproductive worrying. I should sleep.

Frustrations.

2011-08-05T22:52:00.001+08:00

This nasty monster of jealousy must be curbed; these niggling termites known as longing must be banished; this fantastical creature of unrealistic dreaming must be tied down to earth by the huge rock of responsibility, duty, commitment and the general being of twenty-one-year-old-ness.

I thought I was over this stage of nail-biting, toe-tapping, neck-craning eagerness in awaiting something that may never come. I thought I was done with one-sided fantasies. I guess, despite (or perhaps because of) all my travels and adventures, I am still, in essence, an angst-ridden teenager who is honestly, positively, absolutely two years too old to be so named.

[Edit@10.53PM: And I know, I know so damn well exactly what will make everything okay again in my little universe. But that something is so entirely out of my control. And it leaves me waiting, wanting. And it saps away precious energies that ought to be diverted elsewhere. And it is, as I’ve said, COMPLETELY OUT OF MY CONTROL! Or is it? Can I actually influence something just by want? Can I want something enough to make it happen? That’s exactly what someone had advocated, had so enthusiastically sold the idea to me, and then left me right here with absolutely nothing but wishes. And these, these happenings, or rather, lack thereof, warp reality and sow the infectious seeds of doubt. I need to go back to wanting. I want. I very much want.]

Going home.

2011-08-03T17:08:00.001+08:00

I wrote this approximately 15 hours ago.

I’m sitting at the boarding area in Amsterdam, with a heavy heart that I’m leaving the summer behind me.

My last day and night in Kyiv were wonderful and I have Serezha to thank for that. If not for his planning, it wouldn’t have turned out so perfectly. I had some kind of expectation as to what the last night would have been like, but reality turned out to be ten thousand times better than I had ever imagined.

I’m so glad that any misunderstanding between Serezha and I cleared out in the last 24 hours of my stay in Ukraine. I’m glad that he is the kind of person that I had initially thought him to be, rather than the kind of person that I suspected him to have been in the last two days before my departure. He is one of the best people I have met in Ukraine and I feel really blessed to have had his friendship. Come to think of it, every person that I’ve met in Ukraine is special and precious to me in some way.

I would love to take some time to write about the wonderful summer and all the small details that I want to remember, but I know that as soon as I return home, I would be overwhelmed by the work that I have to do. I won’t even have time to imagine the future, about when I may meet some of these wonderful people again, somewhere in this world, much less spend large chunks of time in reminiscence.

I have to thank AIESEC for this wonderful summer, although I must say that AIESEC did nothing except bring us all together. (Which, I suppose, is quite an amazing feat, so I must give credit to the organisation.) In any case, majority of the people I’ve met are fresh AIESECers as I am. So this entire experience didn’t feel anything like the AIESEC back home. It just felt like a group of awesome people coming together, getting to know each other and having a wonderful time. Kind of like an extended version of HKMUN, but much more meaningful, with much more learning points and much more fun and of course, the group constitution was much more international this time, although HKMUN was the most international experience that I had at the time (Jan 2010).

I hope that over the next few days, I’ll have time to do three blog posts. Firstly, a very nostalgic post reminiscing about the entire stay, such as how we came from strangers to become friends, and about closure. Secondly, an enumeration post about things that I will miss, random events and moments I want to remember, descriptions of the special people in my life over the summer. Thirdly, an introspective post about changes, because if I’ve learnt anything from this trip at all, it was the power and importance of introspection that I learnt from Carson. Carson’s constant introspection reminded me that when I return home, I should have a clear idea of what exactly this journey means to me, what kind of impact it has made on my life. He knows very well about his own changes, and I feel inspired to think about mine.

I don’t know if I’ll have the time to do these three posts, but at least I’ve written down the resolution to write them, and if I never have the chance to write, at least I’ll remember the pointers of what they were meant to be about.

Maybe if I have more time, I’ll do a quick post about how fascinating I’ve found the Russian language to be, how wonderful I’ve found Ukrainian culture to be. In particular, about Russian names and Ukrainian hospitality.

And maybe also a post about everything that I have learnt from this, both in the professional sense and in the personal sense. I think this would make my experience become more easy to grasp and reflect upon, if everything I had experienced could be translated into learning points that I will keep with me. Perhaps this post can be combined with the third post on changes.

I feel pleased, proud and honoured that I turned out to be so many peoples’ best friend in Ukraine, and a couple of AIESECers even said that I’m their favourite intern. I don’t know why but my entire time in Ukraine, I feel more loved than I have ever been. Well, except for the first couple of days, when I hadn’t opened up and people haven’t gotten to know me yet, I felt a little neglected and out of place. That lasted just a couple of days, though.

I’m really touched by some of the things that these relatively new friends (I’ve only met them for 5 weeks or less) who feel like old ones have said to me prior to my departure, about how I felt like family, how they won’t know what to do without me, how I have improved their English so much, how they will miss me more than they miss anyone else, how everything will be different after I leave, how I have inspired great change in them, how I have given them support during an important time, how I have helped them achieve something great in life, how the knowledge of my presence Ukraine makes them feel so much better. I’m just glossing over some of these, because many of them have stories that go deeper. Anyway I just feel that many of these words I don’t deserve, because what did I do besides be my usual bubbly and crazy self? Nevertheless, I am so proud of myself that I had managed to create such impacts in the lives of people. In this lifetime, I haven’t had much to be proud of, because whatever I do I always disappoint. But this summer, I felt empowered, in some sense. I felt in control of my emotions, and of the emotions of other people. I felt that whatever may come, I would be able to overcome it and not let it bring me down. It’s amazing.

I also feel so warm and happy by other random sweet comments that people tell me all the time, like how I’m the best person to hug, I’m the sweetest girl of all, I’m the pet... As I said, I’ve never felt so loved. And the things that people did for me and gave to me on my last night… I’m just touched beyond words. Where can I ever find such kind people? I do wish that we will meet again, and that I can return their kindness with something tangible, instead of just smiles and hugs and thank yous. All my life I’ve never been in this position and finally, being here, I just love the feeling and I want to learn how to always be this person that I’ve been this summer.

I expect that I’ll be boarding my flight soon. I shall post this when I return home, and I hope to do the rest of the posts. Writing takes away the bite of constant missing. On the flight from Kyiv to Amsterdam, I fell asleep before the plane had even taken off. When I realised that we were in the air, and I didn’t ‘say goodbye’ in my mind to Kyiv, my heart really sank. I didn’t cry, though. I’m sad to say that my departure sparked tears from a couple of people. I’m sorry that I made them sad. Surprisingly, though, I didn’t cry. I think it’s probably a good thing. Just goes to show how much better my self-control has become.

Yes, here comes the boarding announcement. I should go. I hope I’ll get through this ‘withdrawal’ period easily, and that I’ll always keep with me the changes that this summer has brought about in me.